House 777
by Sunday RAG
Summary: First fanfic ever. A teenage girl struggles to hold onto sanity while trying to uncover the mystery behind House 777, and the man who lives there. Main char is an OC, not romance so don't hope for it. FINALLY FINISHED!
1. Chapter 1

_Do not own JTHM or Squee! Why must i remind myself this?_

**Ariel Barrio**

It was 6:00 am as a radio alarm went off. The radio was playing the song "Bodies" by Drowning Pool. As the chorus sprung out with a loud scream of "FLOOR!", a teenage girl shot up from her bed in terror.

"Awa...Awake...!" she mumbled as she tumbled out of her bed to turn off the ear-piercing music, "Gotta get ready…" Slowly but steadily, she tossed off her pajamas (which happened to be nothing more than a pair of shorts and an old t-shirt). She then put on a pair of blue jean pants and her favorite black top. She liked this top the most because it had her favorite cartoon character on it. Though she was already 17, she still very much liked to watch cartoons. She went to the bathroom to brush her wavy yet thick dark brown hair. She decided to wear it down today because it had been cold outside lately. She did not put on any make-up, for she believed it to be a waste of time. Instead, she put on her thick black eyeglasses. Last, she put on a pair of socks and some sneakers before heading downstairs.

Once she was downstairs, she could smell the scent of bacon in the atmosphere. She then saw her older brother making breakfast in the kitchen.

"Morning," he said with a slight yawn, "You hungry, Ariel?" She shook her head slowly.

"No, Javy. You know I hate bacon," she responded, "And who has a BLT for breakfast anyway?"

"A man!" he grinned, "So stop calling me by that nickname; it's Javier now. You know I start college in a couple of weeks."

"Again? What was wrong with that two-year college you were going to?"

"I graduated there, you fool! Shows how much you pay attention."

"Oh, really?" she scratched her head, "Hmm. Must have forgot."

"You have the memory of a fish, you know that?" he sighed, "We're moving in two weeks and this new college is in the next city. You're going to wake up and go, 'Crap, was I sleep walking again?'" His sister grumbled at his statement.

"Hey, you seen my good luck charm anywhere?" she asked, going through one of the cabinets in the kitchen.

"By the phone," he answered. Ariel saw a little black figurine, it was clay painted black. The figure looked like somewhat of a lizard with yellow beads for eyes, curly white pipe cleaners for what might have been horns, and a detached zipper heading from it's neck down to it's belly. Her brother made a disgusted face as she picked it up and put it in one of her backpack pockets.

"Why do you carry that weird thing around?" he finally asked, "It's creepy."

"I told you, it saved me from those mental meth-heads that tried to attack me in the 4th grade."

"What saved you was _me_. I'm the one who beat the living crap out of them with my baseball bat."

"Yeah, but it brought me the luck that you came to rescue me." Javier shook his head in disappointment.

"That didn't even make since, you loser," he sighed.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm heading for skool now." Ariel put on her red and black beanie that was hanging on the key rack and swung her backpack over her shoulder. Javier stuck his head in the hallway as he watched her leave.

"You don't want a ride?" he asked her. She opened the front door and turned halfway to him.

"I'm fine on my bike. Besides, doctor wants me to do something _physical_." With that, she walked out the front door.

"And stop hanging your hat on the key rack," her brother called, "It's for keys, I tell you! KEYS!"

**The Boy Who Cried SQUEE!**

Ariel road her bike on the neighborhood sidewalk. As she road, thoughts of her skool life traveled rapidly through her head.

"Man, I hope I don't have to deal with those snobby preps today," she mumbled to herself, "Or those 'gangsta' wannabes. Or those emo losers. Or those satanic Goths. Or those crack-head skaters. Or those lame teachers. Or those crazy…" The teen continued on with her irrelevant rant of hate for every subculture in school and began to pedal faster in frustration. While going at full speed, she then suddenly spotted a young boy standing still on the sidewalk. "Hey! Look out!" she yelled at him. The boy turned around to see her speeding towards him.

"SQUEEEE!" he 'screamed' and covered his head with his tiny arms. Right before she was about to hit him, she slammed on the breaks and flew over him, creating a head-on collision with the sidewalk. The boy, finally looking up, saw her twitching on the ground while a little blood started trickling down the cracks of the sidewalk. He took a few steps closer to her.

"M-miss?" he asked meekly. He gently pulled on her shirt to see if she was at least still alive.

"Don't. Touch. Me," she murmured loudly to him. Ariel then jumped up as if nothing had happened. She stood there facing away from the boy for a couple of seconds. After those couple of seconds passed, she swung her head over to him causing a ribbon of blood to fly away from the wound on her forehead.

"WHAT THE **HELL** WERE YOU THINKING, KID?!" she screamed at him loudly. The boy flinched at her outburst. "YOU'RE LUCKY I HAVE A HARD HEAD OR I COULD HAVE FREAKIN DIED! HELL, _YOU_ COULD HAVE FREAKIN DIED! DO YOU WANT THAT? HUH?! DO YA?!"

"N-n-no!!" the child whimpered, "I'm s-s-sorry!" Ariel gasped for breath, but saw the boy was on the verge of tears. She then steadily calmed herself down.

"N-no, that's all right… I was going too fast anyway," she said in an apologetic tone, "Sorry about flaming on you like that." She waited for a response from the tiny child but he just stared at her, trembling with his large eyes. _He looks like a Chihuahua, _she thought to herself and chuckled a little. "Um, my name's Ariel. Ariel Barrio. What's your name, kid?" she asked as she squatted down to reach his height. The boy fiddled with his fingers a little but then finally spoke out.

"Todd…" he said quietly.

"Todd, eh? That's cool," she said as she wiped her bleeding head with her homework. _Man, I really do have a hard head, _she thought, _That could of given anyone a concussion! _"How come I never see you playing outside like all the other kids, Todd? This explains why I've never seem you before." The boy just stared at her. "Um, what were you staring at anyway?" she asked him. Todd slowly looked over to the house they were standing in front of. The house was old and a little small. The windows were blocked off with wooden boards and the lawn was dead except for a couple of weeds. All in all, it was pretty creepy.

"Oh, that's were _that guy_ lives," Ariel stated as she stared, "He never comes out, does he? I wonder what he does all day…" Suddenly a loud scream could be heard coming from inside the house. Todd ran behind Ariel in terror. "Hey, don't worry," she smiled, "He's probably just watching _Psycho_ or something like that." Ariel felt blood trickle down her face from her head wound. She knew she couldn't go to school looking like a bloody mess.

"Hey, I wonder if he's home?" she stated. She then turned to Todd. "Stay here, Todd, I'm going to go ask for a band-aid."

"No! You can't!" the little Todd cried as he grabbed onto her shirt.

"Hey, I'll be fine!" she chuckled at his overexcitement, "I mean, it's not like he's a _killer_ or something." Leaving Todd behind, she began to walk down the walkway to the creepy house. When she finally reached the porch she stared at the doorbell. "Ring me, I dare you?" she read the words on the doorbell out loud, "How charming." With that she pressed the doorbell, which let out an agonizing scream. Ariel quickly brought her finger back to her and looked around. "What the-?" she looked up at the gray sky, "A bird… or something?" She pressed the doorbell again as the scream echoed once more. "This guy… just a bit weird…" Suddenly she felt a strange aura. It had actually been there the whole time but she hadn't felt it until she hit the doorbell. She felt some chill bumps rise as she took a gulp. "Hey Todd, I-," Ariel turned to where she left the boy but he had already ran off. "Huh," she let out, "Must be late for skool… Oh crap! Skool!" Forgetting about her injured head she dashed off the porch got on her bike and began to ride off.

As she rode away, a dark bony hand clenched on to one of the boards that were blocking off the window. A pair of deep red eyes that stared out the boarded window soon followed this action. They watched Ariel as she disappeared into the morning sun.

**Tales From the Skool**

The teenage girl finally reached the High Skool she went to. She chained her bike up and began to walk inside. She walked through the great hall, where all the kids like to hang out. The teachers made it a rule not to, but who listens to teachers these days? Ariel stared at all the students who seemed to be laughing at some of the most stupidest things.

_Uugh, how can they be so content? _Ariel thought in disgust. She stared down at the ground and tried to block out the senseless conversations. She imagined herself at her grandmother's house. She sat at an old table that may have been there since the 60's. In front of her was a plate of tamales. She picked one of the tamales up and brought it up to take her first bite.

"Arrrri-eeel!" screamed the tamale. The girl's daydream was broken by a loud, obnoxious voice coming from behind. Before she could even turn her head to see who it was, she was tackled/squeezed by a tall teenage boy.

"GLOMP!" he screamed as Ariel struggled to break free.

"James!" she growled in a muffled tone, "Lemme go, you loser!"

"Wat up, freaks?" said a voice with a Hispanic accent. A boy a little shorter than James walked up to them, waving with one hand and holding a Brainfreezy in the other. "Having another fun-filled morning, eh chaparita?"

"I most certainly am not, Chewy!" shot Ariel, "I have a six-foot black guy stuck to me right now!"

"Oye…You don't know how wrong that just sounded," he said, with a nervous chuckle.

"Not as wrong as this!" shouted a female voice. Suddenly another teenage girl jumped on Chewy and swung her arms around his neck, "Chewy, when are we having sex?!" she grinned.

"Good morning, Saiyuri," said James, finally letting go of Ariel.

"Back atcha!" she replied as she let her grip on Chewy go.

"I don't see what's so good about it," groaned Ariel, "I mean, were at skool fer Pete's sake.

"Well, you're negative as always," laughed Chewy.

Ariel's group of friends seemed to be a little diverse. James was, how he would say, the 'token black guy' though he didn't act at all like the ghetto-thugs Ariel despised. He was just very energetic. Saiyuri was Asian, Japanese to be exact. She was probably as crazy as James, just in girl a form. Chewy on the other hand was Hispanic, like Ariel. Only difference was that he had an accent as if he had just came to the U.S. from Mexico, while Ariel was a Chicano. His nickname, 'Chewy' was probably short for Jesus. It was obvious that Ariel hated her friends but not as much as everyone else at skool. That's why she hung out with them.

"Hey guys, you know what happened this morning?" Ariel was going to tell them about the kid she had met a little while before.

"WHOA!" James exclaimed, "Ariel's starting a conversation?"

"Is she sick? Maybe she should have stayed home." Chewy took off her hat to check if she had a fever. Instead, he saw a piece of bloody cloth tied around her forehead.

"What the?!" exclaimed James.

"Eeeww!" Saiyuri stuck her tongue out.

"Orale, chica! What the hell happened to you?!" Chewy finished. Ariel grabbed her hat and put it back on her head.

"Shut up!" she growled, "That's what I was going to talk to you guys about! I was riding my bike until I had to dodge this little kid. The landing was my head and the concrete, okay? I was going to ask this guy for band-aid but… he didn't answer the door."

"First off, with that wound, I think you're going to need a bit more than a band-aid," chuckled the Asian.

"Well, you seem to be walking; I always knew your hard head would come in handy," James smiled as she glared at him, "Did you loose any more brain cells?"

"Yeah," she replied rubbing her head, "I haven't lost this many brain cells since my brother and I watched _Monty Python's Personal Best_."

"Who's door did you go to?" Chewy came in, "He's got to be a jerk to not help a injured girl."

"Well…" Ariel trailed off, "It was…you know… that old house that's all boarded up on my street. Number 777." The teens all froze, while their eyes grew wide. Chewy's Brainfreezy slipped through his hands as it splashed all over the floor. Ariel stared at them strangely.

"What's up with you guys?" she asked, almost afraid to.

"Ariel, are you crazy?!" Chewy yelled. Almost everyone in the great hall stopped to look at the quad. After a few seconds, they started to mind their own business again.

"Why'd you yell?" she asked him.

"Ariel, nobody _ever_ goes near House 777!" cried Saiyuri.

"Yeah, that guy who lives there is demented! You're lucky to be alive!" added James.

"Aw, come on you guys," Ariel laughed, "You're taking this too seriously. I mean, sure he never comes out of his house and almost nobody knows what he looks like…but that doesn't make him bad!"

"Yeah right!" said James, "I heard that he drags people who disrespected him into his house and mutilates their bodies with his horrid tools of DISTRUCTION!!"

"I know!" Saiyuri came in, "I heard this girl made fun of the way he looked and he struck a scythe through her mouth!"

"Yeah, I remember a story about a lady calling him goofy and he ripped out her intestines with a spork," added Chewy.

"No, no. You got it wrong Chewy, it wasn't _goofy _it was freaky. And the 'lady' was a transvestite," James corrected him.

"Really? I heard she called him ludacrissy. And wasn't she an alpaca llama?"

"Guys, please!" Ariel tried to shut them up. Chewy sighed.

"Well, whatever the stories say, it's a good thing you're safe," he told her.

"Yeah, yeah," she sighed, "Look you guys, I'm going to be late for class. I'll see you later." Ariel waved to them as she walked away.

"Later," Chewy waved as the others copied.

"So anyway," Saiyuri tried to continue, "I heard he's GAY!"


	2. Chapter 2

**The Eyes of a Killer**

After Skool Ariel walked outside to get her bike, only the bike rack was empty. She stared at the empty rack for a while then closed her eyes.

"I chained my bike here," she whispered to herself. She opened her eyes again to see that it still wasn't there. Springing into action, she jumped towards the rack and started to search around it. "Where is it? Where?! I swear I chained it here! No, no, no…" She looked on the ground and saw her broken chain. It was pried apart, probably with pliers. "What…?!" she growled gripping the chain. Suddenly, Ariel heard the sound of a stupid kid screaming "Whoo-hooo!" She turned around to see a guy riding down the road with her bike.

"HEY!!" she screamed and tried to run after him, "That's MY bike! Gimme back my bike!"

"Too bad, bitch!" yelled the guy and he was gone. Ariel stopped and fell to her knees, gasping for breath.

"S…stupid…gangsta g…ghetto…WHORE!!" she screamed into the air.

The girl walked down the sidewalk into the street where she lived. Her feet were dragging as the weight of her backpack became heavier with each step. She let out a deep sigh and looked up at the cloudy sky.

"How am I supposed to get to skool now?" she asked herself. Suddenly, her feet stopped moving. As if something told them to do so. _Wha…? _Ariel turned to her right to find herself standing in front of House 777 again. She stared at the house deeply. Though she could still feel the same dark aura from this morning, she took a couple of steps toward the house. It pained Ariel to walk towards the horrid place, but something was drawing her to it. _What the hell…? _She thought,_ Stop walking! Stop walking! _

"_Come on, Ariel! You're almost there!" _called a creepy voice._ No… NO! _Ariel screamed in her headAs soon as she made it halfway on the house's walkway, a loud car honk sounded behind her. Breaking out of her trance, Ariel swung her head around to see her brother, Javier, in an old station wagon.

"Hey," he called to her, "Bike got stolen, huh?"

"I-it wouldn't be if you didn't b-buy me that cheap-o chain!" she called back.

"Come on," he said signaling her to come with him. Not wanting to argue with him any more, she quickly got off of the house's property and into the car. Javier stared at the house for a second, "Lets get out of here," he mumbled and began to drive away. As they drove back to their house, Ariel chewed viciously on her nails.

"Dude, calm down," Javier ordered, "What the heck is wrong?"

"N-nothing," she quickly took her fingers out of her mouth. Taking a deep, long breath, she calmed herself down. She thought about the voice she had heard back at the house. The voice hadn't come from the outer world. It sounded like it was coming from inside her _head_. She turned to her brother.

"Javy, you know that house with address 777?" she told him. Suddenly, Javier slammed on the breaks. Ariel nearly hit her head (again) on the dashboard.

"What are you doing?!" she yelled at him. He grabbed her shoulder tightly.

"What do you know about House 777?!" he told her. Ariel got a little scared; she didn't know he freak out this much about it.

"Nothing!" she answered, "I don't know anything about it!" He gave her a blank look.

"Oh," he said letting go of her, "Me neither." He started to drive again.

"Hey! Uh-uh!" she exclaimed, "Don't act like nothing happened! You know something about that house."

"No I don't!" he looked away from her.

"Yeah right!" Ariel stuck her foot into the drivers seat and tried to hit the breaks.

"Hey! Cut it out!" Javier resisted and tried to stop her. The car began to swerve back and forth in both lanes.

"Tell me now!" his sister demanded.

"AWRIGHT!" Javier slammed on the breaks once more until they were at a complete stop. The two siblings sat in the car quietly for a while.

"What's with Ho-,"

"It's rumored that he's a killer," he interrupted her. Ariel cocked her head.

"Who? The guy who lives there?"

"No, his pet rabbit. YES, the guy who lives there!" Javier sighed and placed his hand on his face while Ariel thought to herself.

"But, then, why haven't the police done anything?" she asked.

"They've tried," he answered, "But anyone who goes into that house, never come back out." The girl gulped at the fact that she was standing at the house's door just this morning.

"Well, that explains why everyone's so scared of it. You have to be an idiot to know the stories and go near that place," she said. Javier stared ahead for moment in silence.

"I saw him," he finally said. His sister's eyes grew wide as he said this.

"You SAW him?!" she exclaimed, "But nobody _ever_ sees him! What did he look like?"

"I didn't pay much attention to his appearance. I was coming home from college one night, when I saw him get out of his car in the driveway. Being curious like, everyone else, I slowed down the car to see what he looked like. I wasn't trying to be noticed, but it looked as if right before he opened his front door, he stared dead at me. I don't remember much about that night, but his eyes. Oh, those eyes. Those eyes that seemed to stare straight through my soul," he shuddered, "It was freaky." His sister began to chew on her fingers again. It seemed worse than the stories she had heard at skool. "WELL!" Javier exclaimed; breaking the silence, "There's your bedtime story for the day. Let's go home."

"But what about-," Ariel tried to get more information out of her brother but he stopped her.

"I'm only saying this once," he said sternly to her, "Don't ever go near that house again. Comprende?" Ariel stared at her knees as he waited for an answer. She finally nodded her head slowly.

"Yeah…" she said quietly, "Yo comprendo…" And with her agreement, Javier started the car again and drove home.

**The Half-Life of the Barrio's**

Staring at her bedroom ceiling, Ariel gripped her stuffed 'Boomer' (a stuffed dog that happened to be her favorite cartoon character). She thought of all that had happened today, and how the excitement had brought up more questions she never bothered thinking of before.

"I wonder why I never bother wondering about that house in the past," she told the stuffed dog, holding it up above her face, "I mean, it's always been there. Even before Mom and Dad died." The girl rolled over to her side to pick up a picture that was standing on the dresser. The picture frame held a photo of a younger Ariel and Javier along with two parent figures. Their parents had died in a plane crash when Ariel was 7 and Javier was 11. They had lived with their grandmother in Mexico but she died of a heart attack when Javier turned 18. Since then, they moved back into the house they used to live in with their parents. It was already paid off, but Javier still worked half time as a server at Bobby Turbo's (some sucky restaurant) to support himself and his sister. Ariel sighed as she looked at the picture.

"You help me figure out the mystery, wouldn't you?" she asked the photo. She then let out a brief chuckle, "Probably not." She put the picture back on the dresser then lied on her pillow, feeling the new bandage on her forehead. "That little boy I met today…" she brought up, "I bet he could sense something in that house too. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been staring at it so hard." She tried hard to remember the neighborhood. "Nope. Defiantly never seen him before. Must have moved here when we were living in Mexico. He was a strange kid though. I mean, what kind of child screams with a 'Squee'? Sounds like a newborn piglet."

She got up to look out her window. The night sky was starry tonight. There hadn't been one in a long time due to the smoke from the city. You know, global warming and stuff. Ariel usually reverted back to the fact that her life was so bad because of the climate change or from losing too many brain cells from the Monty Python effect. "There has to be something going on in that house," she mumbled to herself, "Something… unusual…"

**Nightmare on Nny Street**

It was now 2:00 am. Ariel tossed and turned in her bed as a cold sweat ran down to her ear. She was having a nightmare, as usual; only this one seemed to affect her more than others.

The young girl stood in the darkness of the street she lived on. Only a little could be seen, like when you turn off the lights to go to bed and your eyes haven't adjusted yet. She rubbed her eyes some then opened them very widely. She figured if she opened them as big as they could get, she'd begin to see figures.

"You look like a Chihuahua!" said a small voice. Ariel looked down to see the young Todd she had met the other morning.

"T…Todd…?" she put her hand on his head as she rubbed her eyes more with the other, "What are you doing out here at night? Shouldn't you be at home, asleep?" As she said this she felt his head quickly disappear from below her hand. "T-Todd?!" she called. Ariel saw him start to run up the dark street, "Wait! Wait for me!" She chased after him, but like all dreams, she stumbled and began to loose her vision with every step. "Wait Todd! I can't keep up with you…" Suddenly she tripped over her own foot and fell face first on the ground. It didn't hurt as much as it would in real life, so she began to struggle to stand up.

"Eeeeaaahhh… What happened…?" She groaned as she finally got to her feet. Like the time before and the time before that, she once again found herself in front of the mystery house, 777. "No…" she whined as she began to back away, "Not again…" She wanted to run away but the more she backed up, the more she felt a strange force pushing her towards it. "Stop… I don't want to…"

"_Come on, Ariel! Just a couple of more steps and you're almost there!" _Ariel quickly looked around as she heard this.

"The voice from before!" she exclaimed, "Who are you? How do you know my name? Why are you doing this?!" she began to call into the nothingness, as she only grew closer to the house.

"_You don't have to be scared, Ariel," _it said, _"I'll protect you. I'm only trying to help you."_

"No offense, but you're not exactly the best psychiatrist," she stated, still trying to keep herself from moving another step, "Let me go!"

"_It's the only way, trust me, Ariel; it's for the best…" _She suddenly found herself in front of the house's door. There was a brief silence before a climax sprung as the house's door began to crack open.

"No…NOOO!" she screamed. The door flung open where a pair of evil eyes could be seen in the darkness.

"Give her… to _me_…" said the voice from inside the house. Ariel gritted her teeth tightly.

"WAKE…**UP!!**" she screamed into the air. Oddly, it worked. Ariel shot up in her bed with a loud 'gasp'. She sat up in her bed for a while inhaling and exhaling deeply. Finally having the strength to get up, she went down stairs to get a drink of water.

Ariel sat at the table, quietly in front of an empty glass. She stared at the remaining drops of water that was left in the glass all while reflecting on her nightmare. She always reflected on her dreams because her brother influenced her that they always mean something.

_That voice…_ she thought, _It was pushing me towards the house. Was it that guy? No… it was a different person. Yeah… defiantly someone different. But who…?_ She gripped her head. _I'm going to find out. I'm going to find out about that house. House 777_. Suddenly, she heard a light but loud 'thud' behind the counter. She jumped at the sound and immediately stood up.

"Who's there?" she called out tensely. Of course, there was no answer. Ariel slowly began to walk towards the counter. "J-Javy?" she called in a shaky voice, "That you?" Finally reaching the counter, she quickly moved the chair out of the way. There on the ground, lied Ariel's good luck charm. It seemed the thud had come from it falling off the counter. The girl let out a sigh of relief and calmed herself down.

"Ah, it's only you," she smiled and picked up the figure off the ground, "Can't afford losing you." She took the charm with her and headed back upstairs.

Ariel climbed back into bed and under the covers. She stared at her charm once more then put it by the picture of her parents on the dresser.

"Maybe if I keep you close, I won't have anymore nightmares," she said, turning off her lamp. She tried to forget what she had been through in the night and went to sleep. While she slumbered, her charm's eyes began to glow an odd yellow. But Ariel was wrong. In fact, with the figure now by her side, she had more nightmares than ever.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Man That Never Was**

Running down her neighborhood, Ariel tried to hurry and eat a bagel at the same time. The sky was dark, as in it was still early morning. She didn't get enough sleep last night (due to all the nightmares) but she had to wake up earlier for skool now that her bike was gone. Also, she wanted to hit the library for her investigation, so she had to wake up even earlier so she'd have time before class.

"My body hates me," she mumbled to herself, referring to the fact that she was straining her body for personal use. This time, Ariel didn't pass right beside the house; instead she switched to the other side of the street so she would be distracted. She almost made it by the house without looking until she heard another horrendous scream. Not being able to hold herself back, she stopped immediately and looked straight at the house. It looked the same as usual. There was no need to stop. Ariel knew this and quickly looked away.

"Not yet," she told herself, "Let me just go to Skool and I'll deal with this la-," Suddenly, Ariel was cut off from her own words with horrific voices, rapidly running through her head.

"_NOOO! NOOO!"_

"_I promise! I swear!"_

"_Nnng… why? I was only playing…"_

"_C'mon then!! DO IT! Yeah!! Ya coward!! You won't! You __**can't**__!! I know you won't!! … AAAAGH!! GET AWAY FROM ME!!!" _

"_Please don't!"_

"_YOU CAN'T DO THIS!!"_

"Please…" 

Ariel gripped her head tightly with a stagger.

"Shut up…!" she mumbled, "Not yet…! Now's not the time!" Getting in control again, she ran away as fast as she could. _I don't have time to loose it now. I deal with it later._

"Hey, did you hear about that new kid, Vasquez?" Saiyuri told her friends, "Talk about Goth!"

"You shouldn't judge him, although he _is_ kind of weird," Chewy added, "All he does is draw cartoons all day."

"Hey, did you hear about that new girl, Saiyuri?" James said sarcastically, "I heard she's obsessed with sex even though she's still a virgin!" Saiyuri punched him hard in the arm. "Owie!" he yelped.

"Shut up, James!" she growled at him. Their pointless conversation was soon cut off when Chewy spotted Ariel running towards them.

"Ah, Ariel! Buenos Dia-," He tried to wave but she ran right past all of them.

"Can't talk! Going to the library!" she said quickly as she ran past them. The trio watched her run into the library that they happened to be standing so close to. James launched his hand up into the air.

"You heard the lady!" he announced, "To the LIBRARY!"

For some odd reason, google was blocked and yahoo was blocked. So Ariel went to instead. She thought to herself for a while thinking about what kind of topic it would be under.

"How 'bout this," she said. **777 Dead End drive**, she typed into the search bar. She clicked enter and stared at the screen that now said, "SEARCHING…"

"I say, leave the women with a sperm bank with no guys, and we could populate the world again by ourselves," Ariel heard Saiyuri telling the boys behind her.

"You are so ridiculous, it's actually funny," laughed James.

"Oh stuff it! Where would men be without women?"

"Back in the Garden of Eden," Chewy answered. The boys laughed as Saiyuri grumbled at her defeat.

The screen loaded up to only three search results found.

"What? Why only three?" she questioned. She clicked on the first one that read "Horror Hits Dead End Drive". When the page opened, it appeared to be nothing more than a newspaper article. _What's this? _She thought and started to read.

_It was a dreadful and ghastly evening for Dead End Drive, July 7, 1992. In house 777 a family of three were brutally murdered. The family consisted of 29 and 31 year olds Amelia and Heraldo C. along with their only son, 7 year old Johnathan C. The family was vivisected with several hooks and drained to most of their blood. Sadly, the murderer escaped before the police could even show up. Police are still searching for the killer and is on the FBI's Most Wanted List. _

This was all that was read. Ariel reflected quietly on the article as she pressed 'back' to go back to the search results.

"Wait!" she exclaimed, "But the whole family's dead! How could there be anyone living there if they all were murdered? Unless… SHUT UP!" she screamed at her friends, who were still having mindless conversations behind her.

"Jeez, sorry!" said James.

"Who could be living there _now_?" she asked herself. The girl looked at the other results. She clicked on the next one that read, "All Hail the Dark Lord". _Hm? _The computer uploaded to a gothic looking page, with its layout colors being red and black. _What the hell is this? _She clicked on the 'enter' icon that looked like a "Z" with a question mark beside it. It led her deeper into the site where she began to read the description on the homepage.

_The time has come. The time where us outcasts will rule this pathetic planet and be looked up to. Too long we have been judged and cast away from society. This may be a good thing since society seems to be quite stupid these days. But He has started the Revolution. He has finally come and it begins. Disposing the world of the useless trash we live with now. The pests, the arrogant, and the assholes. Soon this world will be a utopia and we will be able to bow down to the true Dark Lord I have been informing you about. All hail Him! All hail Johnny C.! _

_His Humble Servant, Darkness (but you can call me Mmy!)_

The description ended, leaving many questions that still needed answers. She checked the other icons but they all stated, "Not yet updated". Ariel sat back in the seat and reflected once again.

"Hmmm… Johnny C., eh?" she sighed. Suddenly realizing the obvious fact, she nearly fell out of her chair. "Hold it!" she exclaimed once again. She went back to the article she was reading before.

"…and Heraldo C. along with their only son, 7 year old **Johnathan C.**! My God! It's Johnny C.! WOULD YOU GUYS SHUT THE HELL UP?!" she screamed (again) at her friends. The trio immediately stopped talking and stared strangely at their now deranged friend.

"Good Lord, Ariel! I've never seen you this serious about your school work," Saiyuri took a better look at the page she went back to.

"Hey, quit it! This is private!" Ariel tried to push her away.

"What the hell? Happy Noodle Boy?" the Asian questioned as she cocked her head at the screen. James joined in.

"Tch, tch. Ariel, what did I tell you about looking at porn?" he shook his head.

"Porn? What porn?" said Chewy, trying to get a better look, "Gimme my damn porn." Ariel's eye twitched, as her friends grew more annoying.

"Guys, don't you have somewhere to be?" she grumbled at them. In unison, the three looked at their watches.

"Aw, crap; it's 8:28!" said Saiyuri, "Class starts in 2 minutes!"

"Sorry, Ariel, we'll see you later," said Chewy grabbing his backpack he had placed on one of the library shelves. All three kids quickly ran out of the library before the 2-minute bell rang. At this point, Ariel didn't care if she was late or not; she had already found out so much.

_Now let's see what this is. _She clicked on the third and final result. It read, "Happy Noodle Boy". When the page opened, it was very plain. The title was written on the top with bold black letters and a white background. There was nothing on it but only some comic strips. The strips mainly consisted of a freaky looking stick figure with one long hair on his head. The comic had no reason and it seemed the only point was the stick man yelling nonsense and profanity. _This is ridiculous_, she thought and stopped reading the nonsensical words. _Who writes this crap? _She looked at the first panel. "Happy Noodle Boy –By Johnny C." _It's him! He draws comic strips? Hmm… _After thinking what an abomination the comic was, she pressed 'print'. Taking out everything she had learned out of the printer (she printed the article and gothic message too) she stuffed them in her backpack. She walked to class totally unaware that she was 15 minutes late. Of course, she wouldn't care. Ariel was a little bit closer to solving the mystery of House 777.

**Finding Noodle **

After Skool, Ariel decided to go into the city. This was not a good idea, for everyone knows it's not safe for a teenage girl to go into the city alone. But she had found an address on the comic strips where they were sold. She took a taxi with the small amount of money her brother gave her for vending machine snacks for Skool. The taxi took her deeper in the city, and it seemed to get darker too.

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Ariel asked the taxi driver.

"Look kid, I'm just taking ya ta where ya told me ya wanted ta go," he sneered, "So will'ya let me do my job?" Ariel crossed her arms and sat back.

"Sor-ry," she said sarcastically then mumbled under her breath, "…asshole."

They had finally reached her "so called" destination. Ariel got out of the car and paid the cab driver. He didn't say "thank you" or anything, but instead just sped off.

"Jeez, what a jerk!" she finally let out. She turned around to see that she was standing in front of an alleyway. "What the-?" she quickly looked around, but there was nothing, "That bastard let me off on the wrong stop!" In frustration, she kicked a few papers on the ground, "How the hell am I supposed to get home now?" All of a sudden, she noticed the papers she kicked had something drawn on them. Bending down to pick them up, she saw that they were the original Happy Noodle Boy comic strips. "Oh…" she said quietly, "So this _was_ the right stop…" Gathering up the little bravery she had, she began to walk slowly into the alleyway. It seemed to become darker with every step. Soon, she started hearing voices of people up ahead. "Hello?" the teen called out, "Is anyone there?" This was a stupid question to ask, since she had just heard people talking. She turned the corner to find a bunch of hobos (homeless people, for the nitwits). It was a bit scary for a teenage girl. The people were running around acting crazy and babbling pointless words.

"Well, now I know why the strips are read _here_," she said, "These people are insane!" Not wanting to be killed in a crazy rampage, she also began to jump around while reading the Noodle Boy comic like a script. "Nonsensical!!?" she yelled, "Yet you envy me! You wish to wipe my ass!!! Butter my groin!! Hermaphroditic monkeys, you speak with fools' tongues!! That's a nice tie!!" She jumped past all of the insane crack-monkeys, looking for one that she could at least communicate with. Finally reaching a dead end, Ariel spotted an old man sitting an old busted desk typing something on a laptop. She immediately jumped in front of the desk; through it didn't seem to faze him.

"Excuse me sir, but do you speak sense?" she whispered to him, "Hey, wait a minute; if you're homeless then how do you have a laptop? I don't even have a laptop!" The man seemed to ignore her. She sighed and held the Noodle Boy strip up to the old man. "Please sir, can you tell me how this got here?" The man still did not look up. "Could you at least look at it?" she placed it on the desk next to the laptop, "Please?" The man finally stopped typing and slowly brought his eyes to meet with the comic. "Who gives these to the people?" she asked. The man stared at the comic for a long time. Ariel didn't want to say anymore because she had already asked him so many times. He picked up the strip with his old and bony hands and began to stand up. He was actually quite taller than she had expected. He towered over her while holding the paper in front of his face.

"Why would an adolescent so juvenile want to know a dreadful reality such as this?" he said in a deep and raspy voice. Being a little slow, Ariel stared at him for a moment.

"Come again?" she stated. The old man folded up the comic strip and enclosed it in the palm of her hand.

"Dispose of the abomination," he informed her.

"Yeah, that's what I called it," she laughed, referring to the Noodle Boy. The man shook his head.

"The monster inside is what drives him. Dispose of the Monster." Ariel stared at him strangely as she began to back away.

"Okay…" she said. _Crazy! This man is CRAZY! _She once again jumped past all of the hobos and out of the alleyway. "Well, that was pointless!" she scoffed, "You'd at least think they would know something about him." While walking down the street, looking for a taxi, the girl thought about the old man's words. _The monster inside… What a load of bull. No wonder he was the leader of the pack! _Finally catching a cab, she used the rest of her money and went home.

Ariel walked down her neighborhood once again, since the cab driver was another asshole and refused to drive her all the way to her house.

"I hate the world," she moaned. She let out a deep yawn; she had been tired since this morning. Ariel stared at the ground and wobbled a little. "I really need to make up for lost sleep. Good thing tomorrow's Saturday." She suddenly stopped to find herself standing in front of the young Todd, sleeping on the sidewalk. Of course, this was enough to wake her up.

"Todd?!" she bent down to shake him awake. The boy woke up with a fright.

"SQUUUEEEE!!" he squealed.

"Calm down!" she told him, "It's only me. Remember? Ariel!" The boy stared at her, taking quick heavy breaths. "What happened? Are you all right? Why are you sleeping on the sidewalk?" she began to ask him.

"The aliens!" he screeched, "The aliens said they'd come to get me!" Ariel gave him a blank look.

"But… if you were out here, wouldn't that make it easier for the aliens to find you?" she questioned him. The boy let out a yelp as she started to laugh. "I'm just playing!" she chuckled and helped him to his feet, "There are no such things as aliens. Unless you're Chewy, because he's an illegal alien. But don't tell anyone that because then some ignorant people might throw him and his family out of the country." She took him by the hand. "Now where do you live, Todd? I'll walk you home." He wiped his nose and pointed to the house they were standing in front of. "Oh," she laughed nervously, "So you just camped out in your driveway. Now go home and get some sleep," she gave him a little nudge towards the house to make him start walking. Once he was in front of his door, he turned back to see her.

"But what about the alie-,"

"Don't sweat it!" she cut him off, "The aliens always stop by my house first to give me nightmares, but I'll beat the crap out of them so they won't have time for you! All right?" she gave him a grin. For the first time, Ariel saw Todd smile a little, then walk into his house.

"Cute kid," she smiled. Taking a look at her watch, she noticed it was already passed midnight, "Holy Liberace! Javy's gonna kill me!" Before she could even attempt to take off, something interrupted her.

"RRAHAHAHAHA!!" a horrific laugh echoed in the night. Ariel turned around only to realize that Todd's neighbor just so happened to be the house.

"Are you freaking serious?!" she whined, "No wonder that kid's always paranoid!" She turned away from the house and started to run home. _Tomorrow for sure! I'm defiantly looking into this tomorrow, no matter what it takes!_

**Charm & Keeper**

It always makes since when your parents ground you, but your older brother? Well, he did. Javier grounded Ariel for coming home so late. Her excuse was she was studying at the public library, but the library closes at six. Smooth. He assumed that she was hanging out with her friends and wasn't allowed to go out for the next three days. The argument went a little something like this:

Ariel snuck into the house quietly, trying her hardest not to make a sound, but she was too late. The lights suddenly flashed on.

"Ah-HA!!" said a voice. Ariel quickly turned around to see Javier standing at the light switch, looking a little mad.

"Crap…" she mumbled and tried to run upstairs. Unfortunately, Javier made it to the staircase first.

"Just where are _you_ going?" he asked, blocking her way. She tried to go around the other way to avoid him.

"None of your business! Leave me alone!" she answered. Javier kept on blocking her escapes and the two siblings began a chase around the house.

"Why'ya running?!" he said in a demented sort of way.

"Why'ya chasing me?!" she responded.

"I'm chasing you coz you're running! So why'ya running?!"

"Well, I'm running coz you're chasing me!"

"Touché!" He finally managed to grab her arm to stop all of the chasing. "Where the hell were you all night?!" he demanded, "You know it's passed one?"

"The library; I was studying! Leggo'me!"

"The library closes at six, meat-head," he finally let her go, "You're not allowed out of this house for the next three days. Skool on Monday and that's all! Now go to your room!" He pointed up the stairway. His sister growled vigorously at him.

"I hate you! I'm never speaking to you again!" Ariel screamed at him as she stomped upstairs.

"I know you don't mean that!" he screamed back, "You LOVE me! Good night!"

"GOOD NIGHT!!" she finished and slammed the door behind her.

Yeah, that's pretty much how it went. Fortunately, Ariel still had all of her information she got from the library the day before. So, in all the time she spent in her room, she re-read the articles and tried to interpret the Happy Noodle Boy comic strips, even though it was impossible.

"Man! What the freak do the things mean?!" she growled in frustration, "He's just screaming about nothing! Not to mention I'm wasting precious brain cells." Ariel lied back on her bed. She had been at it for hours and still hadn't figured out anything new, though her wandering mind did raise a few more questions. "The article said he died, but he's still living there," she sighed, "Could they have made a mistake? I mean he shouldn't even exist now, right?" Her hand reached for her dresser and searched blindly for her good luck charm. As she was finally able to grab it, she brought it above her head and fiddled with it's pipe-cleaner horns. "You know, you haven't been bringing me much luck lately," she told the figure, "Maybe you've lost your touch…"

"_Doubting me now?" _echoed a voice. Ariel jumped off her bead in fright and dropped her charm.

"W-who said that?!" she stuttered, "Who's there?"

"_Now you don't know me? How sad. You've made me very sad, Ariel."_

"Wait a minute… you're the voice from my dream! Where are you? Show yourself!!" Ariel waited for an image to appear, but nothing happened, "Come on!" she yelled, "What are you, a coward?!"

"_Be patient, my keeper,"_ he told her, _"You can't see me? The answer is right under your nose."_ She looked around the room for anything unusual, when she saw _it_. She bent down and picked up her good luck charm.

"You…?" she whispered, "But…you can't…" The moment was suddenly disrupted by a loud clank at her window. "WAZZAT?!" she yelped and turned to her now cracked window. She ran to it and opened it up. "All right, who's the wiseass throwing boulders at my house?!" she yelled.

"Wiseass_**es**_!" corrected a voice. Ariel looked down to see her two friends, Saiyuri and James, giving her goofy smiles.

"What? You guys? You freakin cracked my window!"

"Yeah, sorry 'bout that," James scratched his head, "But you didn't have any smaller rocks in your yard."

"Heard you were grounded. Want to go to the mall?" Saiyuri asked. Ariel's eye twitched.

"You idiots, what part of 'I'm grounded' do you guys not get?"

"Well, Chewy's working today, so we couldn't ask him," she informed, "And you can get out of the house! C'mon, where your sense of adventure?"

"Yeah, we'll be back in a flash; your brother will never know you're gone," added James. Ariel, thought to herself for a second. She did want to get out of the house, but she also didn't want to get in trouble with her brother.

"… Okay, I'm in," she decided. The teens smiled at her decision. "Let me just get my things." She turned back to get her gray bag (that was just used to carry her wallet and her cell phone). Then, she looked at the charm she dropped on the bed before the disruption. She slowly turned and began to climb out the window. This had to be the first time since the 4th grade Ariel left the charm home.


	4. Chapter 4

**Cute Ones Always Go First**

Saiyuri drove a red mini cooper with white racing stripes. Ariel envied her for this because she didn't have a car, heck, she didn't even have a bike anymore. Anyway, Saiyuri drove; Ariel was shotgun while James sat in the back. She slumped in the seat and scratched her head.

"You need a break, girl," Saiyuri told her, "It seems all you're doing nowadays is homework and reports."

"Yeah," she mumbled. She looked up at the night sky. _It's already after dark?_ She thought, _Jeez, maybe I do need to take a break. Not to mention now I'm hearing voices. I'm probably going crazy! Haha! Me; CRAZY! HAHAHA! _She started to giggle out loud, which soon led to a loud laughter. James and Saiyuri stared at her strangely.

"Yeah, you defiantly need a break," Saiyuri sighed. James reached over the seat and grabbed Ariel's head.

"Little Mermaid, this is Giant Peach. We have finally successfully landed on Planet Crazy!" he said, moving her head around. She tried to break free from his grasp.

"I am not crazy! I'm perfectly sa…" she trailed off. They were yet again passing by the house, but this time it looked as if someone was running out of it. It looked like a young woman dressed in black. "Hey! Look!" she yelled, but they had already passed by it.

"What's up with you?" her friend asked. Ariel looked back frantically.

"Did you see her? A woman just ran out of that house!" she said.

"What house? You mean the one with the zombies?" she questioned.

"He's not a zombie," James interrupted, "He's a Hungarian mummy!"

"Dude, there is something going on in that house!" she continued, "I don't know what but it's starting to get weirder and weirder! Don't you guys ever wonder about it?" Automatically, they both shook their heads.

"Why would we?" Saiyuri said, "You know, sometimes people should just mind their own business. I would be surprised if he is just sick and can't get out like everyone else."

"Sick, yes!" James interrupted again, "He's a sick monster who feeds on his victims skin and tissue!" Ariel gasped.

"Really?! Where did you hear that?" she asked him. This whole event was making her quite gullible. Poor soul…

"Stop scaring her James! You know Ariel doesn't function right when she hasn't had any coffee."

"Oh yeah…" James looked at Ariel who was looking around like a paranoid chipmunk.

"Coffee! That's right!" she said, "I need coffee! I like my coffee black just like my metal! Somebody _please_ SHUT ME UP!!"

The two teens sighed, it had seemed their friend was lost for the time being. But they knew a couple of hours at the mall would somewhat cheer her up and maybe bring her back to the real world.

Ariel and Saiyuri walked in the crowed depths of the mall. James had abandoned them to go buy video games. He probably only came with them because he need a ride.

"Yum…" said Ariel while drinking her to-go coffee.

"Figures he do this to us," said Saiyuri, referring to James, "Well, it's better than keeping him on a leash." She looked over at her friend who was slurping down her hot beverage. "Aww… does wittle Ari feel better now?" she baby-talked while patting her head. Ariel nodded quickly. "Good. I wanna buy some shoes so let's go."

The girls walked to the shoe store quickly, since the mall was close to closing. Ariel felt a little better, but thoughts were still running through her head.

"Johnny…Johnny…Johnny…Johnny…" she repeated quietly. Saiyuri looked over to her as she heard this.

"Knoxville?" she said.

"What?" Ariel looked up, "No! Not Johnny Knoxville, Johnny _C_.!"

"Who's he? Your crush?" she smiled and began to nudged her.

"God, no! He's the guy who lives in 777!" she took another gulp of her coffee, "Did you know there was a freaky murder case there years ago?" Saiyuri took a deep sigh and grabbed Ariel's head, like James had done before.

"Girl, you need to RELAX!" she demanded, "There is nothing going on in that house! It's just a bunch of stories some crack-heads made up. It's nothing, all right? Nothing! Now say it!"

"It's… nothing…" Ariel repeated, "Just stories…" Gaining back her sanity, Ariel began to chuckle nervously. "You know, you're right. I've been so caught up in this charade that I've even begun to hear freaky voices! I just needed a break that's all. Thanks, Saiyuri." Her friend patted her shoulder.

"It's going to be all right," she told her, "You just need to… follow me to the shoe store before it closes!" Saiyuri grabbed her wrist and started dragging her through the mall.

"Yeah, yeah, don't pull!" Ariel pulled away but then stopped. It was Todd with his teddy bear, and he was walking alone.

"Mommy!" she heard him cry.

"Hey, it's Todd!" Ariel pointed. Saiyuri stopped and groaned.

"Oh for the love of crap!" she cried, "What is it now?" Ariel began to walk away from her.

"It's the little boy from down the street," she explained, "And he's probably lost." She soon made it past the crowd but he had already disappeared, "Crap, I lost him!"

"So? This place isn't that big. He'll find his mother sooner or later. Now let's go! The shoe store's gonna clooooose!!" she whined.

"He won't find her, he gets to paranoid! Sai, you can buy shoes another time. I'll even pay for them next time we come, but just please help me find him!" She gave Ariel an upset look, then groaned.

"Fine!" she agreed, "But you better pay up!" Ariel smiled.

"I will! Now you go that way and I'll go this." With that the girls split up to find the missing child. Ariel looked in all of the stores call his name. But there was never any answer. She even checked the toy store four times. "Where could he have gone?" she asked herself. She soon stopped by a department store to take a breather. "Maybe his mom already found him. I better call Sai." Before she could get out her cell phone, something echoed throughout the building.

"AAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!" echoed a ear-piercing screech. Everyone stopped as they heard the sound.

"Saiyuri?" Ariel said quietly. She recognized it immediately. "Man, that girl is loud. Oh no! She might be in trouble!" Ariel followed her memory of where the scream had come from. She went to the back of the building where she saw a door that read "Exit Only". Without thinking, Ariel opened the door.

"Saiyu- Oh my GOD!!" She covered her mouth at the sight of a bloody man lying on the ground. His hand was sliced off and his skull was empty due to the fact that his brains were splattered all over the ground. She backed away in horror. "Ugh… I'm going to be sick…" she moaned. Before she could try to look away, she saw something trembling behind a trashcan. "H-hello?" Ariel called, but there was no answer but a slight whimper. She took a deep breath and stepped over the mutilated body. She looked behind the trashcan. "Hey, who's th…oh no…" There laid Saiyuri, trembling rapidly in fear. She knelt down beside her. "Sai, you okay? Come on, get up." When she tried to reach for her hand, the girl back up even more into the trash.

"NO!!" she screamed, "HE TORE HIS BRAIN OUT! HIS FREAKIN BRAIN!!" Ariel backed away, to show she wasn't going to hurt her.

"Sai, calm down!" she said in a calm tone, "Who did this?" The crazed teen looked up as her head twitched.

"Those eyes… HE DIDN'T CARE!! HE DIDN'T CARE!!" She gripped her hair manically.

"What? Whose eyes? Who didn't care?" she began to ask her, "Saiyuri, you need to tell me!"

"B-blood… brain… he did it… he sh-showed it…to that little b-boy," she mumbled.

"Little boy…?" Ariel, thought about who it could be and she had an idea of whom. She reached out for her hand slowly, this time she didn't freak out. "Come on," she said lifting her up, "Let's get out of here." Before she could even attempt to leave, a horde of policemen came in through the exit door.

"Freeze!" shouted one of them as he pointed a gun at the girls. Ariel stood in her tracks with Saiyuri's arm around her neck.

"H-help us!" Ariel cried, trying to sound innocent. Which she was but it helped so the police wouldn't suspect them. They shined a flashlight over to them, blinding the girls.

"Aw, man," said one of the cops, "It's just a couple of kids."

"HE DID IT! HE DID IT!" screamed Saiyuri.

"Who did it?" said the cop as he approached them. The other police officers shined their flashlights on the bloody man.

"Holy-!" one of them yelped.

"What a mess," said another.

"I didn't see anything," Ariel told the police officer. They were now outside in the front of the mall. There were police cars and ambulances all around the place, while civilians watched from the sidelines. "I just walked in looking for my friend, and I found her shaking behind a trashcan.

"I see," said the officer, as he wrote notes down in a little black book. "You're free to go, but we'll call you if we need to ask you anymore questions." Ariel nodded.

"Okay," she said. The cop walked over to his car.

"All right," he called, "Bring her over here." Ariel looked over to see them bringing Saiyuri over to the car in handcuffs.

"Hey!" Ariel cried running over to them. She grabbed onto the police officer's sleeve, "Where are you taking Saiyuri? She didn't do anything wrong! Matter of fact, she's probably a victim herself!" The officer pulled away.

"Relax, were not suspecting her. She just seems to have information that's all," he told her. They began to put Saiyuri in the back of the car.

"HE RIPPED OUT HIS BRAIN!" she screamed loudly, "HE'S STILL OUT THERE!"

"Somebody shut her up," the cop Ariel was talking to sighed. Without hesitation, one of the officers banged Saiyuri over the head with the back of his handgun. Saiyuri went out cold and fell into the back seat.

"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Ariel shouted. She ran towards them but the officer push her back, making her fall to the ground.

"You have nothing to do with this now. You're of no further help," he said coldly. He then got in the car and began to drive away.

"Bastards!" she yelled after them, "What kind of cops are you?!" Suddenly James popped out of the gossiping crowed.

"Ariel!" he called. He ran over to her and helped her up, "Are you okay? What the freak is going on out here?"

"They got her," Ariel growled, "They got Saiyuri…she's gone…and it's all my fault."

**Am I Crazy?**

After the mall incident, James's mother came to pick him up, while Ariel had to rush home before her brother found out she was missing. This time she lucked out and he hadn't found out. She had climbed back in through the window and went to sleep. Of course, the events of that night gave her nightmare once again.

She woke up the next morning and went downstairs to get some coffee. As she reached the kitchen, she saw her brother getting ready for work. He stopped tying his apron and looked over to her. For a long moment the two siblings stared at each other in silence. Ariel wondered if he had found out that she had gone out last night.

"Morning," she said, breaking the silence. Javier sighed and walked over to her. He gently put his hand on her shoulder.

"Ariel, I'm not sure how to tell you this, but your friend was involved with something very disturbing last night," he told her. Ariel looked away, trying to hide her guilt.

"Really?" she murmured.

"Yeah," he continued, "Supposably, she couldn't help the police, due to her constant babbling. Whatever happened spooked her so much that she lost it. So… they sent her to an insane asylum." Ariel sighed in frustration as her head dropped.

"Damn it…" she grumbled.

"I'm sorry," Javier said. Ending their conversation, he left and went out the door for work.

Ariel went to sit on the couch. She buried her head in her hands thinking about last night. _It's my fault… If I hadn't of asked her, she'd still be sane and not in the crazy house. It's hopeless… _She looked up and thought about what she said. _Little boy… it could have been…_

Ariel walked down the street to the little boy's house. Sure enough, she saw Todd outside in front of his house coloring the side walk with chalk. Ariel walked over to him and stood in his light. He slowly looked up to see her standing there.

"Hey," she smiled, "Whatcha doing?" He stared at her then went back to coloring.

"Drawing on the street," he answered.

"I see," she said and knelt beside him. She stared at the stitched up bear beside him. She found it a little disturbing. "You know, I saw you at the mall last night. Did you find you mommy?" He stopped coloring for a second, then started again and nodded his head.

"Uh-huh," he said. Ariel noticed that this wasn't really getting anywhere and decided to cut to the chase.

"Todd, do you know who lives in that house?" she asked him, pointing next door. Todd looked up at the house. "He's you're neighbor right? Do you know him?"

"That's where the scary-neighbor-man lives," he finally said. This caught her interest.

"So you do know him?"

"He's scary," he continued, "He's always coming in my room and telling me scary stories. Sometimes he leaves drawings too, but they're not very good."

"He comes into your room?!" she exclaimed, "He's never hurt you has he?" The boy shook his head.

"No, but I think he hurts other people. Sometimes he has blood on him." Ariel's eyes grew wide and looked over at the house.

"B-blood?" she stuttered.

"Uh-huh. I saw him last night too." She stood up as she heard that last statement and put her hand on her head. Hearing all of this from a 7-year-old seemed to be too much for her.

"Todd, I gotta go," she said and began to walk away quickly. _Blood?! What the hell! It's a miracle that that kid isn't crazy like Saiyuri!_

As she made it back home she ran upstairs and threw herself on her bed. She buried her head in her pillow and squeezed it tightly.

"God!" she yelled, "This is too much! My friends in jail, my brother's totally oblivious, and now that kid tells me he really is a killer?! This is madness! Am I going crazy?!"

"_I'll say you have,"_ said the spooky voice. Without even looking up, Ariel grabbed the Boomer doll and threw it in a random direction.

"Leave me alone! I don't have time for proof of my insanity," she groaned, "Why don't you make yourself useful and make me smart or something? That way, I can graduate early and start my crappy life over again."

"_I think you have me confused with your lost brain cells,"_ it laughed, _"I'm more of a… conscience."_

"I don't have a conscience," she told it, "I make decisions on my own, and there's no little voice telling me what to do."

_"Ah, but you do feel guilt, am I right? You feel guilty that Saiyuri is in an asylum. You think it's your fault, don't you, my keeper?"_

"Shut up!" she yelled and got up off her pillow. She looked around anxiously, "Where the hell are you?"

_"You dropped me on the ground, remember?"_ Ariel slowly looked over her bed and saw the charm lying on the floor. _"See? Just where you left me."_

"You can't be it," she said, picking up the figure. She held it up to the light and spun it around, "You're not real. I mean, you're real but you're not alive."

_"Do you see anyone else in the room to blame?"_

"Well, it could be Boomer, or I'm just crazy like I suspected," she put her finger to her lip in a thinking pose, "That could be it, but I'm aware and usually crazy people aren't aware that they're crazy." She began to bounce him on her hand.

"_Hey! Cut that out!"_ he bawled. Ariel stopped and looked down at him.

"Oh, so you felt that? Gee, guess you are alive," she scratched her head.

_"Yes, Ariel, I'm alive. Can you put me down so we can have a civilized conversation?"_ She listened obediently and placed him on her bed. She then sat next to him. 

"So," she began, "You know my name, how's that?"

"_I've been with you since you were in grade school. You think I wouldn't know your name?" _he said. Ariel nodded at the sense he was making.

"All right. You pass. Well, you know my name; it's only fair that I know yours. So what is it?"

"_My name,"_ he commenced, _"Is Ziplock. Can you guess why?" _She didn't comment on that one.

"Okay, so Ziplock, how come I never heard you before? I mean the first time was in that bizarre dream. What made you come out all of a sudden?" The figures eyes started glowing it's creepy yellow again as he chuckled evilly.

"_Your curiosity,"_ he said. Ariel cocked her head at this in confusion. _"Ever since you became friends with that little boy down the street, your life has been changing slowly. You see, his stuffed bear to him is like me to you."_

"You mean he's not sane?" she asked.

"_Oh no, he's perfectly sane. He's just a child; he can't be driven by inner voices."_

"So you're inside my head? But isn't this you body?"

_"Well, you could say I'm in your head, but you've already convinced yourself that I'm this figure. So what's the point in changing it now?"_ Ariel nodded once again.

"Hmm. Good point," she agreed.

_"Also, when it comes to voices, there's Johnny C."_ Ariel shot up hastily.

"What?! Johnny C.?! He's got voices too?" she cried, "How the hell would you know something like that?"

_"Don't question me, just take the information."_

"Oh, right!" she said. She quickly got a pen and paper and wrote 'Weird Freaky Head- Voice' on it.

_"He's very weak, that Mr. C. I think he's let the voices get to him. If only you were that weak, I might be able to control you as well. How disappointing…"_

"You say something?" she said, still writing in her chicken scratch. He sighed.

_"Nothing… nothing at all…"_

"There!" she said clicking the pen, "I'm off!" she grabbed her bag and stuffed the paper in it. She began to leave her room but she stopped. She then looked back at the critter still sitting on the bed.

"Yo, I have one more question to ask you, Zippy," she said.

_"I prefer Ziplock,"_ he corrected, _"What is it?"_

"Am I crazy?" she finally asked. There was a long silence between the two of them, yet she still anxiously waited for an answer. He began to laugh his evil laugh again.

_"Not quite, but once you step foot out of this house, I'll say you are. Spying is just one step away from insanity."_

"I am not spying!" she said and slammed the door. After about a couple of seconds, Ariel came back into the room and picked up a pair of binoculars off her writing desk. She looked over at the charm. "It's not spying, it's research," she told him.

_"Sure it is,"_ he said sarcastically. She cursed under her breath in frustration.

"Oh, leave me alone!" she whined and slammed the door behind her once again.


	5. Chapter 5

**One Night At the Gas Station**

The teenage girl ran down her street, with her bag bouncing off her hip. She knew research wasn't getting her anywhere now. She had to jump into action. What was going on in House 777? She was determined to find out.

"There!" she said, spotting the house. With and enormous leap, she jumped into the bushes in Todd's yard. Making a lookout hole through the bushes, she got out a handheld tape recorder from her bag. Her brother got it a long time ago for a diary, but now Ariel used it for times when she got bored.

"1:56 pm," she spoke into the recorder, "I'm in the Chihuahua's yard looking out for the Tasmanian Devil. I've never seen him, but I think today I'll get lucky; I can feel it!" She got out the binoculars and looked through them towards the house, "Come on… come out!"

As you can guess, he didn't. Ariel had fallen asleep on a very uncomfortable branch for at least a couple of hours. "Mmmm… Doughboys? … I hate muffins…" she mumbled in her sleep. Suddenly she was awoken by the sound of a car starting. "Huzzah? Whoz there?!" she said, waking up. To her surprise, she looked through the binoculars again to see a little gray car pulling out of the house's driveway.

"WAH!" she yelped and got out the tape recorder again, "The penguin was flown the coop!" she told it and got up. The car was surprisingly fast for an old piece of crap and took off immediately. "Wait!" Ariel called and tried to chase after it, but tripped on a tricycle on the sidewalk. "YAHH!" she yelled and landed flat on her face. This kid gets a lot of head injuries; she'll need a brain transplant in the future. She slowly lifted her head up off the ground and spit out a little blood from biting her tongue. She looked down the street but the car was already out of sight. Ariel sighed and tapped her fingers on the ground persistently. "If only I knew where he was going…"

The day had passed and Ariel was sitting in front of the TV, writing something down in her notebook. The TV was showing "Adventures in Babysitting" but she wasn't really watching it.

"Let's see, where would a murderer go?" she tapped her pencil on her noggin, "Does he have a certain taste of people to kill? Or does he just go on an insane rampage?" She began to scribble on the paper as she thought. Taking a short break, she looked up at the TV. In the movie, the teen's car had just broken down and they were trying to find a way home. "Use your cell phone!" she told the TV.

"That movie came out in 1987," said a voice. Ariel turned around to see her brother coming in from work. "They didn't have cell phones back then." He began to take off his apron as Ariel looked back at the TV.

"Then… what did people do before cell phones?" she asked curiously. Her brother shrugged and hung his apron on the coat rack.

"They got lost, I guess." He sat beside her on the couch and let out a deep yawn. He then looked over to what she was writing.

"What are you writing?" he asked her. Ariel quickly closed the notebook and got up.

"Um, it's just homework," she replied and began to walk towards the kitchen.

"You sure are serious about school lately," he said, changing the channel, "Hey, will you go get me some jerky?" Ariel looked back at him with a raised eyebrow.

"We don't have any jerky, genius," she informed him.

"I know," he said, "Can you go to the 24-7 and get me some? I'm too tired to get up." Ariel sighed.

"It's only 5: 30…" she looked at the clock that read 11:04. _Man, I'm really wasting my life away these days._ "You must be tired, aren't you worried about my safety?"

"Take the bat, then."

"The what?"

"The bat!" he reached under the couch and tossed her an aluminum bat. She caught it and examined it carefully.

"Aw, Gross!" she said, disgusted, "It's still got blood stains on it from all those years ago!"

"It looks intimidating," he yawned, "Now go get the jerky!" With that, his head dropped and fell asleep. Ariel scratched her head and looked at the bat.

"Well," she began, "At least I can get out with his permission." She took a navy blue hoodie off the coat rack and left the house, dragging the bat behind her.

Ariel finally made it to the small convenience store, the 24-7. Javier was right, as she passed people on the street, they were taken back by the bat and left her alone.

"Watch me by this crap and him not even eat it," she grumbled to herself. Before she could actually make it into the store. She saw a car parked in front of it. Like her bat, there were bloodstains on the hood. It was the little gray car from the House! _That's it! Is he here?! _She ran over to the store, but was in such a hurry, she ran into the door without trying to open it. "Aaagh…" she groaned, rubbing her nose. She gripped the door handle and was about to open it when, suddenly she heard a racket. It was coming from behind the store. Ariel looked to where she heard it then looked in through the glass door. "I'll only take a minute," she told herself and began to creep around back.

"So weak! Look how he makes me seem tougher!" she heard a voice say.

"Gasp! It's true! Let me try!" said another. Ariel ran quickly and hid behind a trashcan. As quietly as she could, she peaked to see what the ruckus was all about. There she saw about three men, all pretty ugly looking.

"A fight?" she whispered. Then she saw _it_. The three guys weren't fighting with each other; they were all beating up on another guy. A fourth one she couldn't see before. She still couldn't see him very well; she only saw that he looked very thin. "Hey! That's not fair!" she ranted, "Poor guy; I should do something." That's when she remembered her bat she was holding. "Oh, that right! I'll just act like a psycho! People are dumb, so they'll probably believe it." She unzipped her hoodie and wore it on only one shoulder. Then she messed up her hair a little to make her seem creepier. Then she pulled her black fisherman's hat over her eyes.

"Look at him shake! Whining that he only wanted a Brainfreezy and didn't want to be bothered, just like a little girl!" said the bald man.

"I am laughing at his funny-ness!" said the one with the beard.

"Hey…!" said a voice. The three men suddenly turned around to see Ariel standing a good distance away from them, armed with her aluminum bat.

"And what the hell are you supposed to be?" said one of the men. She couldn't tell which one since her hat was covering her eyes.

"It's not nice to gang up on one person," she said, trying to sound like a little girl. Ah, it was The Ring effect. Always a nice touch. "Mommy wouldn't like that." She lifted up the bat and smashed it into the garbage cans beside her. "Oh course, Mommy knows it best. She's in heaven because of me anyway." _Sorry, Mom! _She thought, _I didn't mean to bring you into this!_

Unfortunately, the men weren't intimidated at all.

"What the fuck are you babbling about?!" said one, "You want your ass kicked too?!" They began to walk towards Ariel, who now began to realize she should of minded her own business.

"S-she wouldn't like it…" she stuttered and began to back up. Sadly she was running out of ideas. _Damn it! What the hell do I do now?! _"Y-you better watch it!" she threatened, "I'm Mexican! And I know every Mexican Bang Gang in the city! They're illegal! They'll beat the shit outta you and curse at you in a language you don't understand!" Of course, none of this was true. Not even Chewy was part of a gang.

"Come on guys!" said what sounded to be their leader, "Let's shut this wet-back bitch up!" Ariel shivered and armed herself with the bat. But to her luck, something stopped them from getting any closer.

"How sad," said a haunting voice, "How stupid is this world? It's stupid…that people would use racial oppression while only reinforcing old stereotypes." The men looked back to see it was the skinny guys they were beating up on before. Ariel still couldn't see him very well, since it was night. But then he looked up- revealing the most horrific, dead, insomnia-caused eyes she had ever seen.

"What…?" she whispered. Suddenly, voices from the past started running through her head again.

"_His eyes. Oh, those eyes. Those eyes that seemed to stare straight through my soul…"_ she heard he brother say.

"_Those eyes… HE DIDN'T CARE!! HE DIDN'T CARE!!" _echoed Saiyuri's voice.

_The eyes… of Johnny C.!_

The voices made her dizzy, and felt like she lost a couple of more brain cells. To her fortune or misfortune, she fainted on the cold hard street and was out cold.

Ariel woke up a couple of hours later. She slowly sat up and rubbed her hear roughly.

"Uuuugh… what happened…?" she moaned. She looked at her watched that read 2:15, though she didn't really care. Remembering what she had just witnessed, Ariel jumped up to her feet and looked around. "What?!" she exclaimed, "Where did everybody go?" There was no one. No assholes, no killer, just a so-called member of the Mexican Bang Gang. Otherwise, her. Quickly, she ran back to the front and busted through the doors.

"Hey! Mister Convenience Store Clerk!" she said running over to the counter, "Did you see some guys leave hear? Maybe you saw this one: he was really skinny and- HOLY CHEESE!!" Ariel jumped back to see the store clerk lying back behind the counter, with a bullet wound straight through his right eye. She ran out of the store and fell to her knees on the street. "How can he just kill people like that? Is he trying to rid society of the stupid?" She struggled to stand up and began to walk home, dragging the bat like before. _This is getting dangerous. I mean, I could be next! Or worse, one of my friends might have to suffer again because of my selfish reasons! _She stopped and looked up at the sky. _Why do you do this? What are you thinking?_ Ariel sighed and looked down to the ground, _Is it because you have no one? Are you… just like me…?_

**I Miss You**

The young teen opened her front door quietly. No jerky, just a bloody old bat. She went to the couch to find Javier still sleeping on it. He must have had a hard day at work. Ariel went to get a blanket out of the closet and covered him with it.

"Sorry, they were out of jerky," she whispered, "Good night." She went over to the staircase and sat at the top. "He doesn't have anyone," she said, "No parents, probably no friends either." She closed her eyes and thought about her parents. "No one…" she continued as tears slowly started to stream down her face. Quickly, Ariel began to wipe them, away.

"Sorry Mom, Dad," she said as her voice began to crack, "I promised you guys I'd be strong. I'm fine, really. Javy takes care of me. He works really hard all day. You know he grounded me? What a jerk, but it was probably for the best." She tried to stop her continuous tears, but she couldn't stop.

"It's because of _him_," she cried, "He doesn't have anyone, so now I've started to…" The girl caught her breath and looked up. "I've started to… miss you again." She wiped her nose and coughed a little. "Mom… Dad…" she cried, "…I miss you…"


	6. Chapter 6

**Cafe Conversations **

Ariel woke up the next day with red bags under her eyes. Although she couldn't remember, she probably dragged herself to her bed from the stairs the other night. Slow and sluggish, she went downstairs, still in her pajamas (she must of sleep-dressed herself too). She saw her brother getting ready for work again, tying his bow tie. He looked over to his sister who hadn't said a word since she came down.

"What are you doing still not dressed?" he asked her, "It's Monday, you got skool!"

"I don't feel good, can I stay home?" she asked in a tired and scratchy voice. He sighed, went over to her and felt her head.

"You don't feel warm. You can still go," he said.

"But I'm dying..." she whined.

"You're not dying, you just need something to do," he told her, "Did you stay up all night doing homework again?"

"I don't remember," she sighed, "Fine I'll get dressed, but I'm too tired to walk. Can you drive me today?" Her brother raised his eyebrow at her.

Javier stopped in front of the skool and let Ariel out of the old car.

"I'll be home around 11:00 tonight," he told her, rolling down the window, "Do your best!" With that, he rolled back up the window and drove away to work.

The whole day at skool, Ariel dragged herself to every class and slept in almost all of them. She skipped the meeting with the two friends she had left, because she was afraid they would start talking about Saiyuri. She didn't feel like stirring guilt and depression up in her head today. She tried to avoid them all day, that is, until Chewy finally managed to reach her.

"Oye, Ariel!" she heard him call her from behind. She kept walking.

"Leave me alone," she told him without even looking back. He grabbed her shoulder and turned her around.

"Look, it's not your fault, okay?" he said, giving her a pitied look. Ariel broke away.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she snapped, "And who said it's my fault? I didn't say it was my fault. Did James say it was my fault? I'm going to go kill him now." She began to walk away quickly, but Chewy followed her.

"James didn't say anything. Ariel, Saiyuri's going to be fine. She's not totally lost, and she'll get out sooner or later."

"Don't say things you know aren't true..." she looked away. Chewy sighed and scratched his head.

"You really have been depressed lately," he said.

"Have I?" Ariel looked in an office window at her reflection. She looked pretty worn out. "Oh well." In the next second, she looked around, then back at Chewy. "So, where is James anyway?" she asked. He cocked his head at her in confusion.

"You didn't hear?" he asked.

"Hear what?"

"We'll, I don't know the whole story, but I heard some girls say his mom went crazy today before class. She shoved him in the car and said they were moving. Then she said something about this city not being safe." Ariel's head dropped as he said this.

"It was because of Saiyuri, wasn't it? She must of heard and now… James is…" Just then, Chewy grabbed her arm tightly and started to drag her down the hallway. "What the hell are you doing?!" she yelled.

"We're going to clear your mind," he answered as they headed out the Skool.

"We're skipping? Nice..."

"Idiota! Class is already over; it's 3:30."

"Oh," she mumbled. The two Hispanics walked over to a red low rider in the student parking lot. Chewy got in the driver seat while Ariel just stared blankly at the car.

"I never knew this was **your** car!" she exclaimed, looking in the mirror. He suddenly revved up the engine and made the car get one good bounce. Ariel jumped back in shock.

"Either mine or yours, we're the only Mexicans in the skool," he opened the door for her, "Get in!" Ariel took a deep breath and got in the car.

As Chewy drove downtown, Ariel continued to mess with the fuzzy red dice that hung on the mirror. When that bored her, she started fiddling with the Mexican flag that hung above her. Chewy soon told her to stop.

"Chewy," Ariel began, "No offense, but your family's not that rich. Where in the world did you get this car from?"

"My cousin, Emilio, gave it to me for my birthday," he smiled.

"Emilio? And what exactly does Emilio do?" she asked. Chewy opened his mouth to answer but then closed it again. He put his hand on his mouth and pondered to himself.

"You know, I'm not sure," he finally said, "But he's always making these strange hand signals like he's deaf. But he's not deaf, so it's weird." Ariel sighed.

"Chewy, I know I've been acting strange lately and...well..." Chewy quickly put his hand over her mouth.

"Not yet," he told her, "We're not there yet." They soon reached their destination; a small cafe. They parked outside the shop and got out of the car. Ariel looked at the small building and scratched her head.

"Actually, Chewy, I'm not in the mood for coffee right now..." she said.

"Oh, yes you are." He grabbed her by the wrist and began to drag her again.

"This is getting old..." she grumbled.

Ariel sat at a round table by herself, while her friend got them a couple of cappuccinos. While she waited for him, she began to stack the sugar cubes on a napkin in front of her. _No one... _she repeated, _Do you miss them? Do you think... they'd be happy? _She sighed again. She seems to do that a lot. _What are you thinking? Hmm... Johnny C. ..._

"Ya llegamos!" she heard Chewy say, and placed a cappuccino in front of her. When he sat down, he stared at the sugar cube tower she had built while he was gone.

"We need to talk," he told her, "As, you were saying before, I agree; you have been acting strange lately. I mean, you barley hang out with us anymore and all you seem to do is your homework. Is class more important now? Huh? Have you betrayed us?"

"No!" she tried to shut him up, "And, look, it's not homework!" She began to pull out a bunch of papers out of her bag and showed them to Chewy.

"What is all this?" he asked. She leaned into him and lowered her voice.

"Look, I know you're going to think I'm crazy, but... IT'S THAT CURSED HOUSE!!" she yelled. Freaks in the cafe looked over at her in confusion.

"Could you please keep your voice down?" Chewy asked her. Ariel sat back and slumped in her chair.

"It's all his fault," she muttered, "I mean, you could be next, man!"

"Mm-hmm," he mindlessly agreed while slurping his beverage. She started to snap in his face to get his attention, which she clearly didn't have.

"Yo, Chewbacca! Are you even listening to me?" she called, "This is a matter between life and death! Saiyuri's gone, and I still gotta watch out for you and James. Do you understand me now? He'll kill you! He'll do it and he won't care! At least, according to Sai… GET IT?!" Chewy quickly pulled down her hands that she had been waving around in the air.

"Calm down, chaparita! Who the hell are you talking about?"

"The Johnny-dude!" she told him. Chewy stopped to think.

"Knoxville?" he questioned. Ariel slammed her head on the table.

"What is WRONG with you guys?!" she yelled, "Is Jackass all you watch?! No! It's C.! Got it? C.!!"

"Is that abbreviated for a name?"

"I DON"T KNOW!!" He grabbed one of her hands.

"Ariel, keep it down! Do you have any idea what you're talking about? Are you aware of how it doesn't make any sense at all?" Ariel slowly blinked at him.

"You think I'm crazy," she said, her voice softening.

"No, that's not what I meant," he pleaded. She grabbed her papers, stuffed them back in her bag and got up.

"I'll show you!" she growled, "I'm not crazy! And no one like you, the police, or that stupid zipper is going to tell me otherwise!" She turned, swung her backpack over her shoulder and began to walk away.

"Ariel, wait! I can help you!" Chewy called after her.

"Piss off!" she spat, and with that, she left the building.

**Two Down, One to Go**

"GOD! That idiot!" Ariel grumbled as she walked down the street, "Am I the only person aware of this town's safety?" She stopped and looked around the crowded city. It had just occurred to her that she didn't have a ride home. She sat down on a waiting bench and cooled herself down. "I have totally lost it…" Taking out her cell phone, she dialed the number of her brother. Luckily, he picked up.

"Yes; what is it?" she heard him say.

"Javy, I need a ride home," she told him.

"Ari-? Where are you?"

"Chewy left me somewhere in the city."

"Chewy? You mean that Mexican?"

"**We're** Mexican you moron!" she gripped the phone.

"Yeah, but he's… Look, Ariel, I can't pick you up; I'm at work," he informed her.

"Wha???" she whined, "When do you get off?" For a second, she couldn't hear anything but the sound of dishes clattering and people's chitchat.

"At eleven," he finally said, "Can't you catch the bus?"

"No! Last time I rode the bus, the 'statue man' wouldn't stop asking me to pull his 'on switch'! I don't know what the hell that means but it scared the crap outta me!"

"Well, unless you want to wait there all day, I suggest you take the bus," he said.

"Aw, come ooonnnnn!!" she groaned. Just then she could hear the sound of a large explosion echoing down the city. Her train of thought was blocked as she slowly looked in the direction of where the sound came from.

"Hello?" Javier called, "Ariel? You still there?" Ariel spoke quickly and robotically into the phone.

"Javy, I changed my mind; I'm taking the bus. Bye!" She hung up the phone and began to run down the direction of where she just came from. _Please… Please don't let it be there! Please tell me you left! _She finally reached her destination and sure enough, the café was destroyed. It had looked as if someone had let off a bomb inside. Bodies were lying everywhere, bloody, injured, or dead. Other civilians around were panicking and going crazy. Ariel fell to her knees and scooped up some of the gravel.

"Why…?" she whispered as the gravel seeped through her fingers. Bur suddenly, she heard a familiar voice.

"Ari…el…" whispered a choking voice. Ariel looked around quickly. Following it, she crawled over to what used to be her friend. Chewy was lying on the ground with his head bleeding, and surprisingly missing his right forearm. "Ariel…?" he called again. She gently but firmly gripped his left hand.

"Chewy! I'm hear!" she told him, "You don't have to worry; you're going to be all right!" With the little strength he had, he tried to get up, but there was a large piece of the building crushing his legs.

"I don't… think I'll… make it…" he said, but Ariel shook her head vigorously.

"What the hell are you talking about? You're Chewy … No, I mean, you're _Jesus_ Alvarez! Do you even remember how much you endured walking through that dessert? You can't die! Not like this!" His grip on her hand started to loosen.

"Chiquitita…" he mumbled, "Don't… give up… It's _you're_ life…" Ending it, his hand dropped out of hers. She stared at him as his eyes closed shut.

"Chewy…?" she said, but he didn't answer, "Chewy?! Hey, Chewy!" she began to try to shake him awake, "I really don't hate you! I didn't mean what I said before! Chewy! CHEWY!!" She embraced his head in her arms. Civilians watched her in pity. A man finally tried to get her to let him go. He put his hand on her shoulder.

"Kid, he's gone. Let him go," she heard him say.

"NO!!" she screamed and pulled her shoulder away from the stranger, "HE CAN'T BE! HE CAN'T!!" She began to cry with tears she had been trying to hold back for so long. _No… why him…? You…It was you! You bastard!!_

She slowly let her friend go and stood up.

"You…" she glared off into the distance. In an instant, she took off running as if she was on a mission. And she was, but revenge had never crossed her mind until today.


	7. Chapter 7

**Manipulated**

Ariel busted through the door to her house and ran upstairs. Opening the door to her room, she threw herself under her bed as if she were searching for something. Her lucky charm watched her from the dresser.

"_Well now, somebody's motivated,"_ he said. She finally reached what she was looking for and pulled out the old bloodstained aluminum bat. _"Where are you going?"_ he asked her.

"Not where am _I_ going," she answered and picked him up, "It's where are _we_ going."

"_I'd rather not,"_ he responded, _"I'm getting quite used to you're homey little room."_

"Yeah, right!" she gripped him harder, "I know you have something to do with this! Now we're going to settle this once and for all!"

_"Oh? You mean you're actually going to-,"_

"That's right!" she interrupted him, "My life has been going downhill ever since I started wondering about that Godforsaken house." She grabbed her black ski cap and planted it on her head, "We're going in."

"_Hmmm… You know this might be fun after all," _he said with a change of heart, _"After you have rage in your heart, and you know who you're going after. You want to __**kill**__ him don't you?" _Ariel didn't answer. _"Well, don't you? You want to KILL him! Answer me!"_

"YES, OKAY?!" she screamed, "I DON'T JUST WANT TO KILL HIM, I WANNA RIP HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF!!" She stuffed him in her pocket and stomped out of her room. She went downstairs and went to a drawer in the kitchen. "All of my friends are gone now, and it's all because of him!" she pulled out a large butcher knife and slipped in into her coat pocket. "I have to stop this before Javy gets involved. I'm not waiting this time."

"_You're handling this better than I thought,"_ she could hear Ziplock say in her pocket, _"Go ahead; do what needs to be done: KILL HIM!"_

"Shut up!" she snapped, as she opened the front door, "I can do this on my own!"

"_You only __**think**__ you're doing this alone…" _Just then, Ariel heard thunder crash in the sky.

"Just my luck…" she mumbled and began to walk to the wretched house in the cold and icy rain.

**Attempted Revenge**

The rain continued to fall as Ariel stood in front of the house, getting soaked. Without thinking, she began to walk towards the house. Ariel raised her fist high in the air and began to bang loudly on the door.

"Open the door, you freak!" she yelled. After a quarter of a second she banged on it harder, "I said open UP!!" On the last bang, the door slowly fell down. She stared at the door for a moment, not realizing her own strength (or maybe the house was just old and the door was weak). After she was done with that, she walked into the house. The whole place was dirty and at the same time, kind of empty. Not a lot was there besides a box of nails, a writing desk, a door, some scissors on the floor and a small dresser with a couple of jars on them. She walked over to the dresser and peered down at the jars. One said, "project" while the one next to it said, "spare parts". The others, she couldn't make out what was written on them. But they were all seemed to be containing a gross looking substance.

"Sick…" she whispered. She then turned to check out the door. She juggled the doorknob but it appeared to be locked. Ariel got on the floor and looked under the large crack under it, but all she could see was another desk. Before she tried to knock this door down too, she noticed something she didn't see when she first came in: a flight of stairs. They were heading to a lower level of the house. Probably a basement. She walked over to it and looked down the staircase. She couldn't see the bottom due to the lack of light. She took the bat in both hands and began to walk down the stairs. She constantly looked around; ready for anything that was going to come at her. She finally made it to the bottom, but it was pitch black.

"_Watch you're step,"_ warned Ziplock from her pocket. Suddenly, she tripped over something and hit the floor immediately.

"What the-?" she growled as she reached for the wall and flicked on a light switch. This room was a little different. It held a lot of weird looking machinery, or more like contraptions. The machines along with the walls where splattered with blood. "What the hell did I trip on?" she said, looking around on the floor. Ariel noticed a little black book she was stepping, "What's this?" She asked and picked it up. She opened it, as it appeared to be a diary, and began to read the entries out loud.

"Dear DIE-ary," she read. Ziplock laughed.

"Heh heh! DIE-ary. Get it? See how it's spelled?" She ignored him and continued to read. 

"Today I stuffed some dolls full of dead rats, I put them in the blender. I'm wondering if, maybe, there really is something wrong with me." She made a disgusted face and flipped to the next page. "Dear DIE-ary, I stared, motionless, before the mirror. As always, I stayed until I'm convinced that there is no glass, nothing, separating me from the room I see on the other side. I imagine that everything is different over there. Better. There are people in that world, who I would like. But, like always, my hand hits that glass. I know that if I'd only waited just one more second… Shit. I'm gonna go kill a party clown." She closed the book, not really getting anything out of it.

About to head down another staircase, Ariel heard a noise. _RRIIINNNG! _It sounded like a phone, and it was coming from upstairs. Ariel didn't remember seeing a phone when she was on the upper level, so it must have been coming from the room that was locked. She snuck back upstairs and headed to the unopened door. She quietly put her ear to the door and listened. _RRIIIIIIINNNNGG! _

"_Aren't you gonna get that?" _said Ziplock.

"Would you shut up?" she whispered in and angry tone and threw him out of her pocket, "I'm getting so sick of you!" He landed next to the writing desk on the floor.

"Hey! That hurt!" 

The phone continued to ring, but then she heard a _click. _There was silence for a couple of seconds, when she quietly heard a, "…Hello?"

This was soon followed by a series of strange noises:

_WZZZZZZZ_

_**BLAM!!**_

_Whump!_

"_**AAAAIIEEEK!!"**_

Ariel jumped at the sound that seemed to be a gunshot. She thought, maybe, he had shot someone. With all of her strength, she gave the door one strong kick. It wasn't enough. She gave it one more, which was enough and the door disconnected from its hinges. Ariel moved the disconnected door out of the way and swung her bat up.

"All right you sicko! Now you're getting- Holy GOD!!" She fell backwards and turned away. She looked back at what she saw: It was a man, or so she believed it was. He was covered in so much blood that she couldn't even tell what he looked like; besides the fact he was very skinny. She crawled over to the puddle of blood and stared at the man. "H-hey…" she said in a soft voice, Hey… you okay…?" Yeah, right. Ariel looked at the bullet wound in his forehead; he was as good as dead. But he wasn't, matter of fact, he seemed to be breathing very lightly. "Good Lord…" She reached for an old clothe and started to whip the blood off his head, but it had already started to dry and stick his hair to his head. She looked around, got some scissors off the ground and began to cut his hair, since it already seemed so bad.

"Why am I doing this?" she asked herself, "I'm wasting time on somebody I don't even know. Is it… Is it because I'm scared?" When Ariel heard herself say this, she stopped what she was doing and stood up. "No… I can't be scared…" She dropped the scissors. "I'm not stopping now, that bastard's gotta pay!"

Suddenly, for first time she had been in there, she heard a voice besides her own.

"Okay… pant … I think I heard a car honk… pant … We must be close to the top," she heard a voice echo.

"Yeah, well… I still hear screaming so we're probably still closer to Hell," said another. It sounded like a man and a woman but it also sounded like it was coming from below her. Ariel ran downstairs to see if anyone was around.

"Hello?!" she called out but there was no answer. She decided to go down the next flight of stairs she didn't go down before. This room was also dark but she couldn't seem to find the light switch this time. She felt around the darkness and soon met a wall. "Good, now all I gotta do is find a light switch." She felt around some more until she did. She flicked it on and saw a sign next to it. "Take a number; it'll all be over soon. –The management," it read.

Suddenly, Ariel heard a rummaging in the lower levels. She knelt down on the ground and felt the floorboards. They were vibrating.

"What the hell is going on down there?" she said. There were two staircases, but she chose the one on the right side of the room. Quickly, she ran down the stairs when She saw something coming up.

"Eat this!" she yelled and swung her bat, hitting something solid. She panted and looked down into the darkness. "Did I get him?" she panted, but still couldn't see anything. Just then, she remembered a box of matches she hand in her pocket. Why? I don't know. She took out the box and lit a match. When she did this, she came face to face (not really 'face') with a large tentacle-like monster. It swayed back and fourth in front of her face slowly. Ariel stood motionless with her eyes almost three times their size.

"Don't tell me I'm in one of those anime pornos," she whimpered. As soon as it made as much a growl, Ariel screamed and swung the bat at the creature again, hitting it. When she was done with that, she quickly turned tail and ran for her life. She ran up the staircases she came down up, constantly looking behind her and seeing the monster chasing her. She finally made it to the top level and ran for the door.

"_Hey!"_ called a voice. It was Ziplock who was still on the floor, _"You're not thinking of leaving me are you?"_

"Screw you!" she yelled as she ran for the door, "There's a freakin ALIEN chasing me right now!" She went to run out where the door used to be, but she stopped just before she could set one foot out of the house. "WHAT THE FUCK?!" she yelled and looked down from the house. There was nothing. Nothing at all. Just darkness as if they were floating in an outer space with no stars for light. She backed up and looked behind her, hearing the monster coming up the stairs. Ariel dropped the bat and fell to her knees.

"No…" she whispered, "No… Not yet… Not like this!" she clenched her head and cowered on the floor, "NO!!"

"_You stupid girl,"_ Ziplock sneered, _"You didn't even get to kill him. Oh, well. I guess we'll try again next time."_

Ariel looked up to see a long snake-like creature surrounding her.

"What…?"

"_Come on,"_ Ziplock sighed, _"We're going home."_

The last thing she saw were two very large yellow eyes looking at her, kind of similar to Ziplock's. Then, she blacked out.


	8. Chapter 8

**Amnesia & Conquer **

It was dark. It seemed kind of familiar somehow, like a dream that never happened.

"Where am I?" Ariel heard herself ask a pit of nothingness. There was no answer from anywhere. It kind of felt like she was floating without a body, as if she didn't even have a body. It was a strange sensation. It felt comfortable somehow. She felt safe, like nothing could ever hurt her again.

"_Wake up, you dolt,"_ demanded an echoing voice.

Suddenly, a bright light blinded Ariel. She was opening her eyes. She scratched her head and sat up. She was sitting on her bed in her room in her house. It was morning and the sun was coming up. Ariel looked around her room.

"My head hurts," she stated, out of the blue.

"_Yeah, that must have been when I tried to drop you on the bed,"_ she heard Ziplock say to her, _"Your head hit the dresser." _She looked to where his voice came from, the dresser.

"Riiiight…" she said sarcastically, "Is it Thursday? Hmm. That means we're leaving in 2 days. That's right, Javy's got to go to that new fancy college and I get a new horrific High Skool…"

"_Why are you talking about garbage like that?"_ Ziplock butted into her train of thought, _"I thought for sure you'd be traumatized by a freaky event like that. You didn't even reach your goal. Man, now we gotta start all over. Well, come on, let's go."_

"What are you talking about?" Ariel asked, raising her eyebrow at him.

_"What do you mean, what am I talking about?! You were freaking out before! That thing threw us- uh, I mean, **you** off."_

"You're weird," she said plainly, "What thing? Threw me off of what?"

_"God, you STUPID girl!! Don't you remember anything?!"_

"Jeez! Why are you getting so mad?"

"_WHY DIDN'T YOU KILL HIM?!"_ he yelled, _"I TOLD YOU TO KILL HIM! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO KILL HIM! WHY DON'T YOU JUST SUCK IT UP AND DO IT?!"_

Ariel's eyes began to widen as she stared at him. As he was yelling at her, Ziplock seemed to be growing in size. Once he was too big to fit on the dresser (after knocking off the lamp and the picture of her Ariel's parents) he noticed his mistake.

"_Oh,"_ he said, suddenly calm, _"Well, I guess I'm out now."_ Ziplock's appearance was very strange now. He kind of looked like a long black snake, like an anaconda. But he had arms; skinny long arms that contained very sharp claws. The former pipe cleaners had turned into skull horns and his eyes were glowing yellow flames. The one thing that stayed the same was the zipper that went down his now enlarged body.

"What the hell are you…?" the teen stuttered, backing away.

"_Are you kidding me?"_ he chuckled evilly, _"You'd think you'd figure it out by now. Ariel, I AM you."_

"What…?" she whispered.

"_I'm everything you ever kept inside. Hate, sadness, mellowness, but all I needed to get free was that one small thought of curiosity."_ Ziplock began to slither up in front of her. _"I had to keep you wondering. I had to hurt your friends. Don't you see? It was the only way!"_

Ariel thought of the only friends that she'd probably never see again, and began to shake her fists.

"The only way to what?" she growled.

"_POWER!"_ he answered immediately, _"Every human desires power. And you happen to have the best shortcut for it: me! Just do what I tell you and I'll protect you from harm's way. I keep you safe and you can do anything you want!"_

"And what is it exactly you want me to do?" she asked, looking up at him with ice-cold eyes.

"_I already told you; KILL JOHNNY C.! It's only the beginning of your new life! Once he's out of the way, you'll be the most powerful being on earth! After that you can kill whomever you want and get away with it. Nothing can ever hurt you again! So what do you say?"_ He stretched out his bony arm and made a machete appear. He handed it to her, _"Are you ready for a Self-safe homicidal adventure?" _

Ariel stared at the blade for a while. After a long thought, she took it from him. This made Ziplock grin across his evil demon face. She swung the blade around some then finally looked back up at him.

"Invincible, huh?" she smirked, "And you'll protect me, right?"

_"You're nothing to me- I mean, you're nothing if you're dead, so yes."_

"Nice. But you got one fact wrong." She swung up the machete, slid it through his zipper and pulled down. The giant zipper unzipped Ziplock's body, causing a large amount of black slugs to fall out and spill all over her floor. "NOTHING can be protected in this world!" she yelled, "No place can EVER be safe! The only place that we can ever be safe is in our dreams!" Ziplock's corpse started to fall slowly to the ground.

"_I was right… you are strong," _she heard his voice faintly say, _"We could have been unstoppable… but you want to stay in the real world… where nothing… is safe…"_

She dropped the blade and closed her eyes. She reflected over her life. Without hesitation, she changed her curiosity into determination. If she was going to figure out anything about the dreadful house, it was going to be on her own accord. Ariel opened her eyes again, and Ziplock was gone. No corpse, no blade, no slugs, not even a voice.

"We live in the world," she told herself, "And I have to accept the fact that these thing happen. Death, rape, murder, even a bad case of schizophrenia." She walked downstairs and out the door. "I'm going to find out who he is. And don't even think of coming back. It's not curiosity, I have reason now, remember?"

**A Farwell to Squeegee**

It was still morning, maybe 9:00 or so. Ariel walked over to Todd's house. She caught him just in time; it seemed like he was heading off for school already (she's skipping, btw). He walked down the sidewalk with his backpack and a ball of fuzz in his hand.

"Todd!" she called out. The boy stopped and slowly turned around, a little paranoid. But his expression seemed to soften when he saw that it was only she. Ariel walked over to him, and then pointed at the ball of fuzz he was holding. "What's that?" she asked bluntly. He looked at the fuzz then back up at her.

"It's Shmee!" he answered.

"You mean your stuffed bear?" she continued, "Don't listen to a thing he say okay? He speaks lies!" The two stood there for a while in silence, when Ariel suddenly remembered why she called out to him in the first place. "Oh yeah!" she blurted out, "Todd, there's something I need to tell you." She brought him over to sit on the curb with her. "It was true when I said I'd never seen you before, and that's probably because you don't have many friends." Todd's head dropped. "But it's not your fault! There will be people who care about you, Todd. Make friends with them, 'cause they're all you'll ever need. You must protect them, and remember them always," she stood up, pulling him up with her, "I might not ever see you again, kid, but I have a feeling you're going to be okay." She pushed to motivate him down the sidewalk, "Now go to skool! You need your education too!" The little boy started walking but then stopped and looked back at her.

"Where are you going?" he asked her timidly.

"Oh, not far," she smiled, "If I'm here when you get back, then I didn't go after all, and it'll all be good. Now go to skool!"

He nodded with a shy smile and started to walk to skool. As soon as he was out of sight, she looked across the street at the old house.

"I guess it's time," she said, then walked across the street.


	9. Chapter 9

**Test Subject**

Ariel stood across the house in front of its walkway. She could feel the suspense building up inside her body, but was soon able to let it go. It seemed like ever since Ziplock stopped talking, she was much more calm. It was weird, but at the same time she felt relieved. Slowly and carefully she took one step closer to the house. When she succeeded that simple task, she took another and soon made it to the front door. Reaching her hand up, she rang the doorbell once. Suddenly, it struck her. What was she going to say? What was she going to do? Would doing this be just like asking him to end her life?

Her mind was filling up with questions, but they were silenced by the fact that no one was coming to the door. She took her shaking hand and rung it again. Again, there was no answer. Taking a big gulp, Ariel took the doorknob and turned it. To her luck or dismay, it was open. Without walking in she pushed the door open to look in. It was dark, and there was no one around. Slowly, she took a step in the house.

"H-hello?" she called out. The room's atmosphere was bleak and eerie. "Hello? Is anyone home?" After not hearing an answer again, something caught her eye: a little black book on a writing desk. She walked over to the desk and picked up the book. "This… looks familiar…" she mumbled to herself. She opened the book and started to read it silently.

_Dear DIE-ary, Today I stuffed some dolls full of dead rats, I put them in the blender. I'm wondering if, maybe…_ She stopped reading and looked up, "…there really is something wrong with me." She looked back down at the book, seeing the words she had just said out loud, "I've read this before… but… where…?"

"It's impolite to walk into someone's house without being invited in first," said a creepy voice. Ariel froze for a moment. Realizing her situation, she tried to run for the door. But before her hand could even reach the knob, she felt a hard object slam on her head. As the dizziness hit her, she fell to the floor and things began to go blurry. She tried to keep her eyes open but blood started to leak down her face. She saw a steel boot step in front of her face, but it was all she saw before she was completely knocked unconscious.

It seemed hard to breath at the moment, but Ariel started to wake up. She felt weak, and she couldn't open her eyes. She then gently tried to more her arms, but they too seemed to be stuck. With more strength this time, she tried to open her eyes again. This time, she succeeded. Obviously, the blood that trickled over her eyes had dried them shut. Ariel looked up to see why she couldn't move her arms. Her wrists were chained up to the wall along with her elbows. She painfully looked down to see that the same things were done to her knees and ankles. She sighed in shame and looked up to see where she was. But the room was dark. The only light was a small light bulb that loosely hung above her head. Thinking that maybe someone might be around, she spoke out.

"Wha…what did I do?" she asked, her voice cracking a little. There was silence, in which she dropped her head at.

"You'd think that you would notice your own mistake," said the voice from before. Ariel looked around quickly, but it was no use. She could only see clearly in the spot where she was.

"Where are you?" she asked. She heard footsteps from the left side of the room trail over to the right side. Suddenly, the lights flashed on. This blinded Ariel, so she closed her eyes again. She opened them slowly, looking over at the light switch. Even though she was squinting, she got a clear description of the person she was sharing stares at. It was a young man. He was thin, and looked a little taller than her. He wore a striped black and white shirt with ripped up black shorts and black steel-toed boots. His face was unforgettable. He wore a band-aid over his left eye and his eyes looked as if he hadn't slept in days. But his black hair was a little strange, for it looked as if he had left in the middle of a hair cut.

"… Are you Johnny C.?" she asked after studying his image. The man gave one quick and deep nod.

"Yup," he answered. Her heart began to race.

"I see…" she said, "Guess I finally found you." He looked at her curiously, and then began to walk over to her in a fast pace. Seeing this she held her breath and hoped for survival. But he stopped in front of her and leaned into her face.

"Hey… I remember you now!" he smiled a typical evil guy smile, "You're that girl who's always talking to Squee!" She exhaled slowly.

"S-Squee?" she stuttered.

"Uh-huh," he then leaned back up and turned around, "You're also that girl who's always standing outside my house. That's incredibly rude, you know. Not to mention annoying." Ariel looked down and thought about her actions. Now that she thought about it, it would be enough to drive someone mad. As if it would of made a difference anyway.

"Why is my head bleeding?" she asked him, off the subject.

"Ah!" he stated and walked over to a cardboard box. He rummaged around it pulling out knives, chains, and nails. Finally, he pulled out what he was looking for: a bloodstained aluminum baseball bat. "I hit you with this," he said waving it around in the air, "I don't know where it came from, but I found it after returning from the horrible void that is the afterlife." Ariel recognized the bat immediately.

"Blood Bat!" she said. Johnny stopped waving the bat and looked over at her.

"'Scuse me?" he asked. She held her tongue about the bat, but she still wondered how he got a hold of it.

"N-nothing… Um, Mr. C…?" she began to ask.

"Please, call me Johnny!" he told her, taking somewhat of a bow.

"Um… Mr. Johnny-,"

"JUST JOHNNY!!" he screamed. She shot her head back in terror, hitting her head-wound on the concrete wall behind her.

"O-Okay! Johnny; I get it!" she agreed, and started to feel more blood spill out from her head. She tried to forget it and continued. "Wha… What do you plan on doing with me?"

"Well naturally I would have killed you already," he explained, "but for some reason, I didn't. It's really weird. Do you know why?" She shook her bleeding head. "Me neither. I don't have to feed the wall anymore, so that would _kind of_ explain it…"

"The wall?"

"Yes, the wall! You see, there was a _thing_ on the other side of the wall. I had to feed it blood so that it wouldn't come through. But now it's gone. Damn it, I never even got to see what it looked like…"

_Wall monster?_ She thought, "I think I had a dream about something like that. It was chasing me… and it had a bunch of legs. No, not legs… tentacles." Johnny raised his eyebrow as he listened to her babble.

"You are a little strange one," he said, "But I think I might have some use of you."

"What's that?" she asked, her voice trembling.

"Mmmm…. I know!" he blurted out, "You're my new test subject!" He ran over to get a pencil and a small post-it note. He wrote 'Test Subby' on it and smacked it on Ariel forehead.

"W-what?" she stammered, "Test subject?!"

"Uh-huh," he nodded his head, "For some reason or another I don't have the urge to end your life right now, but maybe tomorrow I will. If you're able to live in the next three days, then that means I'm not crazy anymore! But if you die… well, what else is new?"

She exhaled cautiously. She had been holding a little bit of her breath the hole time.

"Well, I'm in the mood for a Cherry Fizz-Wiz!" he said heading to the door, "I'll see you tomorrow, 'kay?" With that, he turned off the light and slammed the door behind him. Ariel gazed at the ground in the sol light if the light bulb.

_Three days… Jeez, I hate my life._

**St. Jimmy**

She guessed it was morning, even though there were no windows in the room to see the morning light. She could barley sleep, due to the pain in her limbs. It was day two, and she was still alive. Ariel looked down to see the 'Test Subby' post-it that was on her forehead had fallen off somewhere during the night. She knew that sometime or another, Johnny would come back. She tried to budge again, but the chains were strong, even though they were old and rusty. Or maybe it was because she was too weak to actually use all of her strength. She looked around the room. There wasn't much in it, just the cardboard box and a crate full of weapons, the old Blood Bat on the floor, the door, and a painting on the wall that had the letter Z and a question mark in red paint. Or so, she thought it was paint. The door suddenly swung open. There stood Johnny drinking a Cherry Fizz-Wiz.

"You're just now getting back?" she asked a little surprised, "Do you never sleep?"

"I don't need sleep," he said, crushing the now empty can, "I have better things to do. How 'bout you? Comfy?"

"… No," she answered plainly, "I couldn't sleep because I was in so much pain."

"Excellent!" he squealed, dropping the empty can, "That means you're still alive."

_Of course I'm still alive…_ "Sir, if you don't sleep, then what do you do?" she asked him.

"Work," he answered simply, "It requires a large amount of my time."

"You have a night job?"

"I work all day!" He then walked over to the box and pulled out a knife, "It's always lot's of fun! I wonder if I'm in the mood for _killing_ today?" he grinned manically. Ariel started to sweat. She seemed pretty freaked out about the knife he was holding but she soon forgot about it when she saw a cockroach crawl out from one of the cracks in the wall. She gasped loudly and tried to move backwards (as if she could move anymore). Before the roach could get any nearer to her, Johnny's knife flew through the air and stabbed the roach right in the middle of it's back.

"Damn it, Mr. Samsa," Johnny stated taking his knife out of the bug, "You just won't die will you?" He looked up at Ariel. "Mr. Samsa doesn't bite; why are you scared of him? Hmm. Well, I guess it'd be natural for a little girly-girl to be scared of bugs."

"Don't stereotype," she finally spoke out, "It's only roaches for me."

"Oh? And why is that?" he asked, pulling up the wooden crate to sit on.

"Well, when I was little, my brother and I lived with my Abuela. Uh, I mean my grandmother. One time I went in the basement when no one was home and I got locked in. For about three hours all I remember seeing were roaches crawling all over the pla-," she stopped herself to figure out that she was having a perfectly sane conversation with the same man who said that he'd kill her. "…And why am I telling you this?" she grumbled.

"Probably because you want someone to talk to, eh?" he said, smearing off the roach guts with a glove, "You're lucky I'm here to listen to you, or you'd probably end up hearing spooky voice-thingies in your head." Ariel sighed.

"Too late for that."

"Oooh! You have them too?" he smiled, looking a little more interested in her.

"Well, not anymore. I told him to go away." Johnny's smile wiped clear off his face. He turned around and gripped the knife.

"You were strong enough to get rid of it?" he said in a deep voice. Ariel stared at him in confusion.

"Yeah…" she said, trailing off, "He wanted to make me do things I didn't want to do. So I got rid of him." She could see his body start shaking. Finally he turned around, pointing the knife at her.

"HOW?!" he yelled at her. Ariel was again, taken back.

"Whu-what?!" she stuttered.

"HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO GET RID OF THEM?!" he continued, "I MEAN, SURE THE DOUGHBOYS ARE GONE BUT I CAN STILL HEAR THAT FUCKING BURGER BOY!!"

_Oh, God! This guy is out of his mind! _She panicked inside.

"I-I'm sorry! I don-,"

"SHUT UP! YOU MAKE ME MAD WITH JELOUSY!!"

He swung the knife up and started to swing it down to her chest as Ariel shut her eyes as tight as they could go. But suddenly, the doorbell rang. He stopped his action and looked up.

"Fuck!" he yelled, "And I was so close too!" He dropped the knife at Ariel's feet and went upstairs, again slamming the door behind him.

"Oh, jeez…" she said, exhaling, "Thank God the doorbell rang. Whoever rang it must be a saint…"

**The Sounds From Upstairs **_**+Extra+**_

Ariel began to hang loosely in the chains, due to her exhaustion and discomfort.

"One more day…" she told herself, "I just gotta keep him busy for one more day, and I'll be okay… right?" Suddenly, she thought of something she didn't bother thinking of before. What if even after the three days he didn't let her go after all? What if he decided to kill her in the end and didn't hold his part of the deal?

"Oh, god…" she whimpered, "This isn't happening… Tell me this isn't happening!" She looked around the dark room and started to panic. Pretty soon, she started to get desperate and finally broke. "Ziplock!" she called out of nowhere, "Ziplock, help! I'll do whatever you want! Please, help me!" She continued to call his name, but there was never an answer. Her head sunk down with the rest of her body. "I… I don't want to die…" she whispered, "Not here… please… I want to-"

"EEEK!!" she suddenly heard an agonizing voice from an upper level scream. Ariel stopped herself from going anymore into the pathetic void she was falling into and looked up at the ceiling. A loud series of thuds followed the scream.

"Wha… what was that?" she asked herself. There was silence for a while. Still, Ariel waited to see if she could hear any more of what had happened.

"Okay. First lesson!!" yelled a voice. She recognized it immediately; it was Johnny's. She then heard him say something else, but she couldn't make it out. Maybe he was speaking softer rather than screaming. But he continued. "Second- Just because we've similar interests does not guarantee you're going to like me!" –mumbling- "My delusionary hell does not agree with yours!!"

"What's he talking about?" she said, still looking up, "Is he arguing with someone?"

"And though this gets me no absolution, I Would Never Do What You Did To That Girl!! You Abomination Of Mental Subversion!! Oh, Look!! An Orifice! How Do You Like Being Fucked With Steel?!!" After a while, it seemed that he had finished. Ariel then heard a faint whimpering, probably from the other person. She listened closely. A loud BLAM ended it, followed by another mumble. She assumed whatever was going on ended and let her head sink back down to where it was before.

"One more day…" she repeated, "Just one more day…"


	10. Chapter 10

_Sighs... Sorry ppl; i'm having a little trouble getting into Johnny's maniacal character. It's hard since I'm nothing like him. It's not terribly bad, but I'm having defficulties making him talk and sounding too calm. Need to make him more crazy... crazy... Think CRAZY!_

**Confessions of a Prisoner and a Murderer**

The teenage girl breathed heavily in and out, hearing herself echo through the room that she was growing physically sick of. She had not eaten in 2 days, this being the third. She was dehydrated and she continued to feel light-headed from the wound in the back of her head.

"I'm… _dying_…" Ariel moaned, "How did it… end up like this…?" She closed her eyes and pictured her brother. He must have been freaking out, looking for her everywhere. Skipping work, and calling the useless police. "Javy…" she whispered.

She brought back memories of when they were kids. She saw her six-year-old self running around in the front yard as her 10-year-old brother chased her with a hose. The children laughed and screamed. The young Ariel ran over to the house screaming, _"Mom! Mom! Save me from Javy!" _She ran to the mother figure, but when she grabbed her skirt, the woman disappeared into dust. The child looked at her hands in horror._ "Dad…?"_ she called, _"Something happened to Mom…" _But her father was nowhere to be found. She turned around to find her brother, but he was gone too.

"No…" she mumbled in a sleep-like state.

All of a sudden, she felt a small pain hitting her forehead. She opened her eyes and looked up to see the serial killer poking her forehead with a pencil. When he saw that she had awoken, he stopped.

"You went 'BLEEEAAGGH!!'" he told her. She squinted her eyes at him in confusion.

"Went… what?" she managed to say. He pointed down below her. She looked and saw that somewhere during her (day)- dream, she had vomited. She coughed a little at the sight. "I feel sick…" she groaned.

"Don't we all," he agreed, "YAH! Don't distract me; I came down here for something specific!" He went over and pulled the crate to sit on again. He sat down and stared at her immensely with his black eyes. "HOW DID YOU DO IT!?!" he yelled out of no where. He did this a lot, so Ariel wasn't really affected like she was before.

"… Do what?" she asked, not exactly sounding interested into what he was getting at.

"The vooooiiices!!" he whined, "How did you get rid of them?? Tellme! Tellme! TELLME!!"

"I don't know…" she said in a weary voice, "I pulled his zipper… then he fell apart." Johnny turned his head around to think.

"Meat doesn't have a zipper…" he mumbled to himself. He looked over at the girl who was still hanging her head over. He sighed and stood up. "I guess it's no use then," he sighed walking away from her, "If my life is continuously operated by lifeless objects, I really start to wonder if I truly belong on this world. I'm starting to think that… maybe I don't belong anywhere. Heaven, Hell, nowhere. I don't know. Maybe they have something in Limbo for me. "

Ariel seemed to be ignoring his little monologue, but when she heard that last part she looked up.

"What…?" she asked him, "What did you say?" Johnny turned around and looked to her.

"Heh?"

"You mean suicide?" she questioned. He scratched his head some.

"It didn't exactly go as planned last time, but maybe this time I'll succeed then try to find another place I can belong."

"Are you insane?!" she said , raising her voice. He nodded.

"Yes. But I believed you were supposed to be confirming or denying that fact. You do seem to be alive still…"

"Good God, man! Killing people is one thing but going as far as to end your own life? That's your _life_! You only get one! How could you even think of doing something like that?!" Before she could rant anymore she felt a sharp pain jam into her right shoulder.

"AAAGGHH!!" she screamed. Johnny had thrown a knife into her. He walked over to her.

"You were getting kind of noisy, so I tried to kill you," he informed her, "But I missed. How could that be? It's all very strange." He went over to the box and pulled out a large blade. Ariel didn't notice this though; she was focusing on the knife in her shoulder. He pointed the blade at her face. "You don't have any right to tell me what I can and can't do," he growled, "And don't even THINK about blaming me for your current position. Nobody told you to come crawling up into my house. My life is shit and for everyone I meet, his or her life turns to shit too. You couldn't imagine the things I've seen, done and been through! A little bratty kid could NEVER understand the horrors I done!! NEVER!!"

Ariel clenched her teeth and began to pull at the rusty chains that bonded her. She now had enough strength to actually break them. (Now you KNOW the chains are old) She fell to the floor as Johnny backed up a little in disbelief. She struggled to bring herself up but she was still pretty weak.

"You think YOUR life's shit? Big news, buster, the world doesn't revolve around you!!" With all of her power, Ariel began to crawl over to where he was standing. "My parents died when I was only seven, and my grandmother died not too long after that. It's been only me and my brother for five years now, and I barely even see him!" She finally made it to where he was standing and reached up and grabbed the bottom of his shirt. "I had only three friends. One left, the other's gone crazy, and the last one… Well, YOU _KILLED_ HIM!!" She held back the tears; this was no time to give up, "You killed him! Why?! What did he ever do to you?! My brothers the only one left and soon he'll be gone too! I have _nothing_ to live for anymore!" She coughed up a little bit of blood and continued, "Let's face it, I have a crappy life, and maybe you do too. But I'll tell you one thing that's different…" Ariel reached up her right hand and grabbed his collar and looked up at him. "I'M GONNA _LIVE _**MY** LIFE!! HEAR ME SHITHEAD?! I'M GONNA LIVE!! _**LIVE**_!!! I'M GONNA- Ugh!" she was cut off by the pain in her shoulder and fell to the ground again. She tried to pick herself back up, but it was probably a better idea that she stayed down. When she got up on her knees, Johnny immediately stabbed her with the blade straight into her chest. This time she didn't scream, but instead fell on her back trying to figure out what just happened. Johnny sighed.

"I apologize for not telling you before," he commenced, "But I don't like to be touched." He stared down at the girl as she started bleeding all over the floor. "Sorry, but I don't know if you're going to live or not. So I guess the experiment failed. But you did give me something to think about. Life, eh?" He turned around and walked out of the room. Ariel lied there trying to savor her lasts breaths of life.

_Is… Is this the end…?_ She thought, _I… never even got to… say goodbye to Ja…_

Johnny came back into the room with the telephone in his hands and a backpack on his back. He plugged it into a socket on the wall and unhooked it next to Ariel's face. He then dialed a number into the phone.

"You want to say goodbye to your brother, right?" he asked, "Actually, I gotta go. I have to bid a farewell myself. I hope Squee's home by now." He began to walk to the door again, but stopped and looked back at her. "After you went through all that trouble to say that little speech of yours, well… I hope you live." And with that, he shut the door behind him, and he was gone.

The phone was ringing in her ear. It rung several times before she finally heard a voice answer the call.

"Barrio residence, can I help you?" she heard her brother say. She opened her mouth to talk, but she couldn't get any words to come out. "Hello?" he asked, "Is anyone there?"

"Ja-Ja… vy…!" she whispered, gargling on some blood.

"… Ariel…?" he inhaled, "Ariel?! Ariel is that you?!"

"Ja…." She was running out of breath within each second

"Ariel!" he yelled, "Where are you? Are you okay?! Ariel?! ARIEL!!"

She began to close her eyes as darkness shrouded her world. Javier's voice echoed through her head.

_Javy… I'm sorry…_ She closed her eyes, _I'm sorry…_

* * *

_Don't give up! The story's not over! (thought i'd say that since it seems like it could be the end)_


	11. Chapter 11

**Awake**

It beeped. _Beep… Beep… Beep… _It sounded kind of annoying yet at the same time, soothing. Where was that sounded coming from?

"Who's beeping?" withered a voice. Ariel opened her eyes and realized it was her own. She looked up and saw a gray ceiling. She then squinted her eyes at the ceiling tile lights. They were dim, but bright. She slowly turned her head to where the beeping sound was coming from. There was a black screen. On that screen was a yellow line going… then beeping. She stared at it for a while, then finally realized where she was. She pushed herself to sit up and looked around the room. It was dull yet bright. It was a hospital.

_Am I dreaming?_ She thought. Ariel felt her shoulder and noticed the patch covering the wound. She did the same to the back of her head, feeling the bandages. In a daze of confusion, she looked down her hospital gown and saw her chest bandaged up as well. _But… I died… _She slowly looked down to her left and saw her brother, Javier, in a metal chair sleeping with his head and arms on the bed. She pushed him a little, just to wake him up, but didn't say a word.

"Uh…" he groaned. She pushed him again. "Uh…! Huh?" He finally looked up and saw his sister awake and looking down at him. "A-Ariel!" he jumped up, causing her to flinch a little, "Y-You're awake! You remember me, right? Can you talk?" She gave somewhat of a nod. She then pointed down at her hospital band, as if she was asking him what was going on. "You called me," he told her, "But you couldn't speak, so I called the police. They were able to trace the phone call and find you. You were at that house. It was huge; you were so fare underground it took us hours to find you! When we did, we thought you were dead, but you okay now! And that's all that matters!" He squeezed her hand in happiness. Ariel went to feel the wound in her chest. She survived a blow to the chest?

"I am… going to live…?" she asked him in a small voice. He looked at her in astonishment.

"What are you talking about?" he chuckled a little, "Of course you're going to live! You're here, aren't you?" She looked around the room again, then felt her brother's hand. It was real. She was alive after all.

"…going to live…" she whispered.

"What?" he asked. She turned to him with tears of happiness in her eyes.

"I'm going to live!" she repeated, "I'm going to _LIVE_!" Javier smiled and embraced her, in which she did in return. "Live… Live…!" she mumbled as she hugged him. Ariel had cheated death and stolen her life back. She was alive, and she was going to _live_.

**Don't Give Up**

Three weeks had passed, and Ariel finally got out of the hospital. Her brother missed the chance of going to the college he wanted too, but it would of cost too much anyway. Instead, they decided to move. Somewhere to start over and try something new. Javier drove the old station wagon, while Ariel sat beside him. They traveled down their neighborhood, seeing as how they were leaving and all.

"Hey, Jav," Ariel asked, "Did they… did they ever catch the guy? You know… the…" Javier sadly shook his head 'no'.

"No," he answered, "When we got there, there was no one in the house. Well, at least no one that was _alive_. He ran off before the police could even get a lead. That's why it's best if we move away; it's too dangerous here." His sister sighed. The whole world was dangerous; and this place was no different than anywhere else. "Oh yeah," Javier began to reach into his pocket. He pulled out a necklace with a cross on it. "Mom wanted you to have this, but only when you were ready. You've been through so much, you deserve it now." She took the necklace from him and smiled.

"Thanks," she said in a calm and content way. She unhooked it and put it around her neck. She looked out the window in high spirits of what might happen next. Suddenly, she saw her little 7-year-old friend talking to a kid his age outside his house.

"Javy, stop the car!" she told him. He stopped as she began to get out.

"Where are you going?" he asked her.

"I'm just saying good bye to a friend," she said, "Don't worry, it'll only take a minute." He nodded as she walked over to the boy.

"Todd!" she called out. The little boy turned to see her coming.

"Ariel!" he responded. She walked up to him as he pointed at her head, "What happened to your hair?" he asked. Ariel's hair was cut short to her shoulders. She laughed a little.

"Uh, I just wanted a new look, that's all," she chuckled, even though the real reason was because the head wound had bloodstained her hair too and had to get it cut.

"I like it long better…" he said.

"Me too," she agreed. Suddenly she noticed a little kid standing behind Todd, glaring at her. "Um, who's your little friend there?" she asked him. Todd looked behind him. The kid was about Todd's height, wore black and had somewhat of a mohawk with black hair. What was strange though is that he had horns on his head. She assumed they were playing some kind of game and it was a costume.

"Um, this is Pepito," Todd answered.

"Pepito, huh?" Ariel smiled. She squatted down next to the child, "Hola, como esta usted? Soy Ariel Barrio. Mucho gusto, Pepito!" The boy's eyes began to glow with a rage.

"QUE?!" he yelled, "Just because my name is Spanish, you automatically think I am fluent in the language?! You horrible foolish soul! If that crucifix around your neck was not protecting you I would give your soul to my father!" Ariel stood back up, a little taken back.

"Uh, sorry?" she apologized. She understood how he felt, though. Her parents had not taught her Spanish when she was younger since they were born in the U.S. Her brother and her didn't learn the language until they lived in Mexico for those lost years. Pepito began to walk away.

"Come to my house later, Squee!" he told him, "Don't worry, we won't be having soul-toast." The kid left, leaving Todd in worriment and Ariel in confusion.

"Squee?" she asked him. He nodded slowly, kind of in shame, "Oh… so you're… he was talking about… Squee?" She put it all together, and it made sense. "Did, um… Did your neighbor say good bye to you?" The boy gave her a worried look and nodded 'yes'.

"Did he really leave?" he asked her, in a hopeful tone. She kneeled down next to him and patted his shoulder.

"Listen, Todd," she commenced, "Even though I just went through a very painful hell, I still try to look on the bright side. See, he maybe crazy and psycho, but I don't think it's his fault. He probably left to find a solution to his problem. And I think he might get better. Todd, I think you're going to get better too. I'm glad you made a friend." She gave him a big hug and stood back up. Before actually saying goodbye to him, she looked next door. Knowing what she was doing, she began to walk over to it.

"Ariel!" her brother called, "What are you doing?!"

She stepped under the caution tape that now surrounded the house. Finally, Ariel made it to the front door. She reached into her pocket and dropped a folded up sheet of paper on the front step. She quickly walked away from the house and back to the boy.

"Just in case he comes back," she smirked. Ariel walked back to the car and got in. She looked out the window and rolled it down. "Good bye, Todd," she waved at him. He smiled and waved back at her.

"Bye, Ariel!" he waved, "Come back if you can!" Javier started the car up as they began to drive. Ariel looked out the window as they went. Something new was starting, and Ariel couldn't wait to find out what it was.

**Letters and Entries**

Another 2:00 a.m., and the infamous Johnny C. sat on his car outside the 24-7. He sucked on a Brainfreezy and flipped around a sheet of paper he had found on his porch a couple of days ago. He put his beverage down and looked at the paper.

"Wonder who this is from?" he asked himself. Without hesitation, he quickly opened the paper. It appeared to be a letter addressed to none other than himself.

_Dear Mr. Johnny C., _

_In this dreadful reality we call "the world" we are all outcasts in our own eyes. Constantly thinking we can be liked or even loved by people we don't even know. But when it comes down to it, we all hate ourselves, and we do worry about what other people think. It's a good thing we're not alone in it, though. There are going to be people out there who care. They might not always be around, but we must give them a chance and cherish them in our hearts. Johnny, I'm writing this so that if we ever meet again, I can help you. I know your pain and I can understand your suffering. You took a wrong turn somewhere but I believe that can be fixed. Lost is a feeling we all share. But we're all working at it to find the exit. If you ever read this, I hope that by that time you feel better. I pray that you find what you are looking for. And thanks for helping me find my reason._

_-Ariel Barrio_

Johnny stared at the paper for a long time, reading the words over and over again. Finally he looked away from the paper up at the pale moon.

"She really is weird," he sighed, "…and apparently alive." Suddenly, he dropped the letter and swung out the black book. He opened it and began to write.

_Dear DIE-ary,_

_There's nothing terribly wrong with feeling lost, so long as that feeling precedes some plan on your part to actually do something about it. Too often a person grows complacent with their disillusionment, perpetually wearing their "discomfort" like a favorite shirt. I can't say I'm very pleased with where my life is just now… But I can't help but look forward to where it's going._

He looked back up at the moon; the same exact moon Ariel was looking at from wherever she was. There is only one moon, and we all seem to see it in our own eyes. Good, or bad.

"Ariel Barrio, eh?" Johnny whispered, "… How strange…"

**+THE END+**


End file.
